. ^\- 































































































































































University of Michigan 
HISTORICAL STUDIES 

PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE 
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY 



THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 



V 



THE 

COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

A History of Race Prejudice in a Typical 
Northern State. 



FRANK u/qUIIJJN, Ph.D. 

PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY AND ECONOMICS 
KNOX COLLEGE. 



A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Department of Lit- 
erature, Science, and the Arts, of the University of Michigan in 
partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of 
Philosophy. 



ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN 

GEORGE WAHR 

1913 






Copyright, 1913 

BY 
FRANK U. QUILLIN 



Gift 

"Efca Uuiverstt* 



*PR '6 1113 



THl ANN AREOR PRESS 
PRINTERS 



TO 

GEORGE D. SELBY 

WHO HOWEVER PROSPEROUS CAN NEVER 

BE LARGER OF PURSE THAN OF 

HEART, THIS WORK IS 

AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED 



PREFACE. 

Eight years ago while a student doing post-grad- 
uate work in Harvard University, I received from 
Professor Albert P>ushnell Hart the inspiration to in- 
vestigate the feeling of the people of the North to- 
ward the negroes living amongst them. I wrote out 
at first a brief story of the treatment of the negroes 
in my home town in Ohio. At the suggestion of Pro- 
fessor Hart this article was submitted to The Inde- 
pendent and published. Soon it was copied in scores 
of newspapers throughout the country, giving evi- 
dence that the treatment of the negroes was of great 
interest to the American people. 

From the publication of the above article until 
the present time I have been a student of this partic- 
ular phase of the negro question. For five years I 
have been carrying on my investigations under the 
supervision of Professor Claude H. Van Tyne, of the 
department of History in the University of Michigan. 
For the history of the feeling against the negro I have 
had recourse to many good libraries, the best of which 

I found to be the Ohio State Library at Columbus, 
Ohio, in which I spent many profitable weeks. For 
the knowledge of present day conditions I have de- 
pended upon an original or "first-hand" investigation, 
travelling about for months and interviewing many 
hundreds of white and colored men. 

The book is divided into two parts, Part I giving 
the history of the feeling toward the negro, and Part 

II showing present day conditions. Either part may 
be read first. The casual reader will probably find 
more interest in the book if he reads Part II first . 

In these pages there will be found, I hope, no de- 
fense of race prejudice or sentimental regard for the 
negroes. The book will portray conditions only, and 
for this reason will appeal for its readers to a wider 



X 



THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 



public. The author of this book is descended on his 
mother's side from the Pennsylvania Dutch and on 
his father's side from Virginia English. He was born 
and brought up on the north bank of the Ohio River, 
while many of his relatives lived just across the river 
in "Dixie Land," where he often visited- He is a native 
of the great State of Ohio which led in the anti-slavery 
crusade, but which now in its treatment of the liber- 
ated blacks is like so many of the other Northern 
States— in a way to be developed in the following 

pages. 

For these and other reasons the author hopes to 
be able to narrate facts about the treatment of the ne- 
gro in the North without a partisan temper or a biased 
mind. 

I am indebted to hundreds of people in various 
parts of the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Mich- 
igan, for the information in this book. But I desire 
to express my special obligations to Professor A. B. 
Hart of Harvard University for getting me started on 
the work, to Professor U. B. Phillips, of the Universi- 
ty of Michigan, for reading the proof and making 
many valuable suggestions, to Mr. C. B. Galbreath, of 
the Ohio State Library for most courteous treatment 
during the time spent with him in the summer of 1909, 
to my wife for the many hours spent in tedious work 
upon the maps, and for many most valuable sugges- 
tions, and to The Independent, of New York City, for 
the privilege of incorporating in this book several ar- 
ticles written by the author and published in that ex- 
cellent magazine during the last few years. To Pro- 
fess. >r ( Maude H. Van Tyne, of the University of Mich- 
igan, who has for live years encouraged me at every 
step of the way but who has not been content with 
anything but what he considered thorough, I acknowl- 
edge my deepest obligations. 

Frank U. Quillin. 
Galesburg, Illinois, September, 1912. 



CONTENTS. 

INTRODUCTION. 

Purpose and method of the inquiry — Comparison 
of views with those of Alfred H. Stone in his recent 
Studies in the American Race Problem — Nation-wide 
features of the problem of racial adjustments— Ohio 
a typical Northern State. 

PART I. 

THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT. 

CHAPTER I. 

FEELING TOWARD THE NEGRO SHOWN IN THE CONSTITU- 
TIONAL CONVENTION, 1802.. 

The first Ohio Constitutional Convention — Mo- 
tions regarding the status of free negroes — Votes for 
and against negro rights — The question of introducing 
slavery — Slavery prohibited — Little evidence of sec- 
tional vote — Race prejudice evident. 

CHAPTER II 

LEGAL STATUS OF NEGRO, 1802 — 1849. 

Status of negro in the State constitution — First 
Black Laws passed— Law of 1807; negroes forbid- 
den to enter State, etc.— Debarred from serving in 
militia — Forbidden to sit on juries — Shut out from 
school privileges — Summary of Black Laws — Supreme 
Court decisions affecting negroes — Why the Black 
Laws were passed — The number of negroes entering 
Ohio — Report of legislative committee on the negro 
question, 1832 — Enforcement of the Black Laws- 
Great expulsion of negroes from Cincinnati, 182!) — 
Conclusion. 






x ji THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

CHAPTER III. 

REPEAL OE THE BLACK LAWS, 1849. 

The negro question in Ohio before 1830 — Anti- 
slavery's defense of free negroes — Petitions to Legis- 
lature; for repeal of Black Laws — Repeal accom- 
plished, 1840 — Reasons for the repeal — W. H. Sew- 
ard's speech in Cleveland, 1848— Attitude of the Free- 
st »il party — Make-up of the State Legislature — Bal- 
ance of power held by two men — The "deal" made by 
these men and the Democratic party — The repeal not 
in accord with the popular will — Summary. 

CHAPTER IV. 

SOCIAL POSITION OF NEGRO, 1802 — 1849. 

Negroes generally regarded "as an excrescence on 
the body politic" — William Jay's discussion of free 
negro status in the United States — Attitude of the 
people of Ohio toward schooling for negroes — School 
troubles in Cincinnati — Oberlin College and its atti- 
tude on the question — Opposition to "nigger schools" 
throughout the State — Negroes denied religious priv- 
ileges — No protest by colored people — Committee 
report on condition of negroes in Cincinnati in 1834 — 
Negroes denied the right of petitioning the Legisla- 
ture — Slaves actually held in Ohio — White men's 
views of racial discriminations — Report of legislative 
committee, 1827 — Editorial opinion — Report of leg- 
islative committee, 1832 — The expression of a justice 
of the Supreme Court of the State — Summary. 

CHAPTER V. 

PEELING TOWARD THE NEUltO AS EXPUESSE1) IX THE CON- 
STITUTIONAL CONVENTION, 1 S.">() — 1851. 

The growth of race prejudice — Proceedings of the 
Convention as expressing public opinion toward the 
negro — Petitions, number and kinds — Petitions on 



CONTENTS xiii 

behalf of the negroes bitterly assailed — A typical 
petition — Division of Ohio into a "North" and a 
"South' 1 — Comparison of negro types and numbers in 
the two sections — Consequences — Votes in the con- 
vention upon motions regarding negroes — (1) To en- 
roll them in the State militia— (2) To give them the 
suffrage — (3) To throw open public schools to white 
and black children on equal terms- 

CHAPTER VI. 

LEGAL STATUS, 1850 — 1912. 

Legal Status of negro in 1850 — New school law of 
1853 — Supreme Court decisions upon this — Chief Jus- 
tice Peck on the situation as regards the negro — Suit 
of colored boy for remedy, 1870 — A similar suit in a 
Federal Court, 1881 — New enactment throwing Pub- 
lic schools open to whites and blacks, 1887 — Reception 
of this law in the State — Colored schools retained by 
many towns in spite of the law — The struggle for ne- 
gro suffrage — Attitude of the Legislature in 1859 — 
Attitude of the Democratic party, 1865 — The popular 
vote, 1807, upon granting negro suffrage — Action upon 
the proposed Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal 
Constitution — The effect of the amendment in Ohio — 
Act of 1884 securing equal rights to the negro. 

CHAPTER VII. 

SOCIAL STATUS, 1850 — 1912. 

"Equal rights" on the statute books and "equal 
rights" in actual life — A judge refuses a colored 
preacher a license to perform marriages — A colored 
woman ejected from street car in Cincinnati, 1859, 
solely on account of color — Wilberfore College burned 
to the ground by negro haters — Convention of colored 
people of Ohio, 1873, and their resolutions — Colored 
man put up for office to appease his race — A colored 



XIV 



THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 



boy tries to join a company of cadets in a Columbus 
school — Colored man refused admittance to certain 
section of theatre in Columbus — He assaults the door- 
keeper — City Council refuses to prohibit discrimina- 
tions — A picture of race-prejudice in one of the small- 
er towns of the State — Negro Lynchings in Ohio — In 
Adams County, 1856, 189-1— In Crawford County, 
1882, — At Washington Court House, Fayette County, 
1894,— In Clermont County, 1895,— At Urbana, 
Champaign County, 1897, — The Akron race riot, 1900 
— The Springfield race riots and lynchings — The re- 
fusal of the white people to give "equal rights" to ne- 
groes — Attempts of colored people to collect damages 
as provided for in the equal rights act of 1884 — De- 
feated by the State Supreme Court — Conclusion. 



PART II. 

PRESENT DAY CONDITIONS. 

CHAPTER I— CINCINNATI 

Purpose and method of this inquiry — The equal- 
rights law a dead letter in Cincinnati — Physicians — 
The fire department — Parks, hotels and restaurants — 
Pullman cars — The Y. M. C. A. — Theatres — The real- 
estate market — Labor unions — The industrial status 
of negroes, and the reasons therefor. 

CHAPTER II— DAYTON. 

Exclusion of the negroes from the better class of 
stores, soda fountains and saloons — Theatres — Real- 
estate — Employments — Explanation of the regime 
contributed by while and negro citizens. 



CONTENTS xv 

CHAPTER III— SPRINGFIELD. 

The labor unions — The race riots of 1904 and 190o 
— The present bitter hostility toward negroes. 

CHAPTER IV— COLUMBUS. 

Change in feeling toward negroes — Bad effect of 
recent negro immigration from the South — A strained 
situation — Racial discriminations — Divisions among 
the negroes — The views of upper-class negroes. 

CHAPTER V— CLEVELAND. 

Remarkable absence of racial antipathy and dis- 
criminations — Negroes in the trades and professions 
— Social segregation — Causes of the Cleveland condi- 
tions. 

CHAPTER VI— SYRACUSE, A NEGRO-HATING 

SMALL TOWN. 

Negroes prohibited from spending a night in Syr- 
acuse — The town's reputation — A negro family on the 
outskirts — A son and daughter in school — The exclu- 
sion of a would-be negro resident — Ohio town condi- 
tions in general — Feeling in the state as a whole. 



xv i THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

MAPS. 

PAGE 

No. 1— Negro Population of Ohio, 1800 18 

No. 2 — Votes in Constitutional Convention of 

1802 on Status of Negroes 19 

No. 3— Negro Population of Ohio, 1830 27 

No. 4 — Negro Population of Ohio, 1850 71 

No. 5 — Votes in Constitutional Convention of 

1850-'51 on Status of Negroes 75 

No. G — Votes by Counties in 1807 on Giving Suf- 
frage to Negroes 100 

No. 7— Negro Population of Ohio, 1870 101 

No. 8— Negro Population of Ohio, 1900 121 



INTRODUCTION. 

This book was written as the fruit of an investiga- 
tion of race relations in the history of Ohio. It con- 
tains generalizations which I consider important and 
which at the time I reached them I thought were orig- 
inal contributions as well as independent conclusions. 
They had been forced upon me by the weight of the 
facts revealed by my own investigations in Ohio, and 
were not obtained from the works of oilier writers. One 
of the readers of my manuscript, a Southern gentle- 
man, who had made an extensive study of the race 
question kindly pointed out that many of my conclu- 
sions were familiar to the special students of the ne- 
gro problem. I then looked more deeply into the lit- 
erature bearing upon the larger phases of race rela- 
tions. Among other works, I read a book written by 
a Southerner living in the "black belt," a book enti- 
tled Studies in the American Race Problem by Alfred 
Holt Stone, which not only contains my "important 
conclusions" but which emphasizes them as his 
important conclusions; he a planter in the far 
Southern State of Mississippi and I a school-master 
in the most northern State of the Northwest Territory ; 
he, after fifteen years' study of the relation of the 
white and colored races throughout America, and I 
after studying for several years the feeling between 
the races in one of the largest of the Northern States. 
come to these conclusions: 1. That the prejudice of 
the white man against the negro increases according 
to the growth of the negro population; 2. Thai the 
average negro is worse off in the North than in the 
South because he is here so completely shut out from 
the more advantageous industrial opportunities; 3. 
That social equality between the races in the North 
as well as in the South is a myth; 4. That civil rights 
for whites and negroes in the North are the same tech- 



2 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

nically, but that actual discriminations are just as 
numerous as in any Southern State; 5. That there is 
much more prejudice against the negro race today 
than there was at the close of the Civil War ; 6. That 
it is essential to the Northern man, if he would really 
know the truth of his own section, to get it from the 
lips and hearts of the colored people themselves. 

Although I have been disillusioned as to some of 
my conclusions being discoveries I am more than satis- 
fied for the sake of truth and harmony to find that 
the same conclusions have been arrived at by another, 
and he a Southerner. The conclusions arrived at by 
such independent investigations must necessarrily 
have greater significance for those who desire a mutu- 
al understanding between the North and the South on 
this important race question. As Mr. Stone says, 
"There would be precious little room for misunder- 
standing between us here, if each of us were only more 
thoroughly acquainted with his own and the other's 
ground." 1 "We would do well to sweep our own door- 
steps before calling attention to the condition of our 
neighbor's. It is a fundamental principle of every pro- 
ceeding in equity that the complainant come into court 
with clean hands." 2 

Before proceeding with the discussion of prej- 
udice in the abstract let us Northerners "sweep our 
own doorsteps," let us "come into court with clean 
hands." A picture drawn by another Southern writer 
to show racial discriminations in the South requires 
but slight retouching to portray conditions in Ohio. 
Here the public places of honor and profit, which are 
open to every white man, have been and are closed to 
the black man as by iron doors. In the learned pro- 
fessions, in the direction of corporate enterprises and 
important industrial agencies, in the higher industrial 
and mechanical occupations, even in the factories and 

1 Stone, American Race Problem, 23. 

2 Stone, American Race Problem, 34. 



INTRODUCTION 3 

workshops, where some small degree of skill and in- 
telligence is required of the operatives, he has had and 
now has no standing or place whatever among white 
men. As a professor, teacher, merchant, lawyer, phy- 
sician, journalist, he receives some little countenance 
and patronage from his own race, and he looks for no 
other ; porter, drayman, hod-carrier, coachman, butler, 
barber, cook or waiter, he may be at pleasure, and find 
service; but when in touch with the whites it is ever 
the service of the inferior to the superior that is exact- 
ed from him. 

The negro is admitted to some hotels and other 
public resorts; but his place is on his feet while there, 
or is fixed apart by some special provision in his be- 
half. He cannot sit at the table, public or private, 
with a white man. If he attends the white man's 
church (which he seldom does), he is assigned a place 
where he will have much more space than he really 
needs for comfort. He has no seat in the congrega- 
tion and none at the communion table. He is excluded 
without ceremony from the councils of the laity. He 
is sexton and organ-blower and bell-ringer. His posi- 
tion in the household of faith is the same as in the 
household of fashion, — that of a door-keeper and ser- 
vitor. In the theater and the circus, the camp-meet- 
ing and the court-room, the hospital and the prison, 
the cemetery and the potter's field, his place is his 
alone, and is readily located. Wherever he goes or 
stays, works or worships, plays or suffers, lives or dies, 
the lines are drawn sharply around and about him, 
and there is no transgressing them — from his side. 

The two races have been and are utterly separat- 
ed. As the Cincinnati (Ohio) Commercial Gazette of 
June 15, 1889, said : "The color-line is everywhere. It 
is in every church. It is in society. It is in politics. 
And there is no class that knows this better than the 
colored people There may be a sentiment in fa- 
vor of wiping out the color-line, but it is not honest." 



4 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

Exceptions there are to all the above restrictions 
on the negroes, but we are concerned not with excep- 
tions but with general conditions, — with the views of 
the white people in general toward the negroes dwell- 
ing in their midst, and with the adjustments result- 
ing. 

Some readers will say that this picture is over- 
drawn, others will say that it is wholly untrue. I was 
born and reared in Ohio. I love her as I love no other 
State, and I have no reason whatever for misrepre- 
senting her. I shall give the facts as I found them. 

Ohio is not alone among the Northern States in 
her discriminations against the negro race. "There is 
not a State in the Union, from Massachusetts to Cal- 
ifornia, which through some element of its population, 
does not today, somewhere within its borders, in some 
way discriminate against the negro race. The laws 
and customs of every State, from the beginning until 
this hour, have been influenced by the factor of the 
relative numerical strength of the negro." 3 As Mr. 
Stone goes on to say, wherever the negro population 
increases in numbers there you may find the discrimi- 
nations also increasing. Ohio is but typical of all the 
Northern States and for this reason I entitle this book 
Tli e Color Line In Ohio, a History of Race Prejudice 
in a Typical Northern State. 

"On the evening of December 17, 1855, there as- 
sembled a gathering of the colored citizens of the city 
of Boston to do honor to a member of their race. The 
man was William C. Nell. The occasion was the pre- 
sentation to him of a testimonial of appreciation of 
his labors in behalf of the removal of the color line 
from the public schools of Boston. The e\ent com- 
memorated the crowning achievement of a purpose 
formed and work begun some twenty-six years before. 
It marked the close of a quarter century of patient and 
unremitting struggle with established law and cus- 
tom. The meeting was made memorable by the pres- 

8 Stone, American Race Problem, 13. 



INTRODUCTION 5 

ence of such men as Wendell Phillips and William 
Lloyd Garrison, who rejoiced with their colored breth- 
ren that "the prejudice against color was dying out." 
This was the keynote of all the addresses made — the 
faith that the final surrender of this long-stormed cit- 
adel marked the passing of the prejudice of race. 

"Fifty-two years later, in November, 1907, a great 
concourse of Boston's colored citizens assembled in 
Faneuil Hall to protest against the steady and wide 
increase of race prejudice in America. The meeting 
was addressed by the gray-haired son of the great abo- 
litionist, in tones which were far from sounding an 
echo of the hopeful, long forgotten words of his fath- 
er." 4 

It was not in the South that one of the most sen- 
sitive and most cultured men identified with the negro 
race, W. E. DuBois, was first made to realize that he 
"was different from the others." It was away up in the 
hills of New England where he was made to feel the 
presence of "the shadow of the veil,'' 3 when a white 
girl schoolmate refused his card with a significant 
glance. 

In 1842 in the State of Massachusetts we find ne- 
groes excluded altogther from the cars on the New 
Bedford Traction Railroad. 6 In 1905 in the same 
State we find a clause in the warrant for the "town 
meeting" of Marion, providing for a vote on the ques- 
tion of employing only white men on town work. 7 In 
a town of northern Indiana in 1907 the proprietor of 
the leading hotel permitted a negro to sit down at the 
table with white customers, and as a result the travel- 
ling men and others boycotted the hotel and it was 
forced to close. In a contribution to a leading negr< i 
magazine a Southern negro in relating his experiences 

4 Stone, American Race Problem, 211-212. 
G DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk, 2. 

Samuel J. May, Some Recollections of our Anti-Slavery Con- 
flict, 399. Quoted by Stone, American Race Problem, 67. 

1 Stone, American Race Problem, 7. 



6 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

in a Northern university says that he found "not an 
ounce more of opposition" from Southern than from 
Northern students, but describes the former as more 
"frank" and the latter more "secretive" in their social 
atitudes. 8 In virtually all the States of the North 
there are cities which provide for the separate educa- 
tion of the black and white children. President Emer- 
itus Eliot, of Harvard, says, "In Northern towns, 
where negro children are proportionally numerous 
there is just the same tendency and desire to separate 
them from the whites as there is in the South. This 
separation may be effected by public regulations, but, 
if not, it will be effected by white parents procuring 
the transfer of their children to schools where negroes 
are few." 9 

Many things might be mentioned here to show the 
truth of Mr. Stone's statements when he says, "A con- 
tention that the negro is treated as an equal in the 
North is not often made by sensible men, and it can- 
not be supported by facts. It is idle to point to a mu- 
latto upon whom Harvard has conferred a degree, or 
to one whom a G.A.R. post has elected its commander, 
and say to the world : 'Here we tolerate no racial dis- 
criminations.' The negro knows better, whether he 
considers the discrimination in either its social, polit- 
ical or economic aspect." 10 

Having taken this hasty view of the social posi- 
tion of the negro in the North let us now turn to the 
industrial phase of his life in this section, and compare 
it with his treatment in the South. It has often been 
stated by people in the North that the negro is not 
given a fair industrial opportunity in the South. The 
negroes themselves are almost unanimous in saying 
that lack of industrial opportunity is found in the 

8 William Pickens, The Voice of the Negro, April, 1905, pp. 235, 
236. Quoted by Stone in American Race Problem, 23. 

" flic Work and Influence of Hampton, 1904, p. 9. Quoted by 
Stone, American Race Problem, 68. 

10 Stone, American Race Problem, 23. 



INTRODUCTION 7 

North more than in the South because the Northern- 
ers, especially trades-union people, will not think 
of working with them. As the negroes are the ones 
that hear the burdens of this prejudice it would 
seem that they ought to know whereof they speak. 
Booker T. Washington, in a plea for industrial educa- 
tion and opportunity, says : "No one can fully appreci- 
ate what I am saying who has not walked the streets 
of a Northern city day after day seeking employment, 
only to find every door closed against him on account 
of his color, except in menial service." 11 On the other 
hand, he says : "Whatever other sins the South may be 
called upon to bear, when it comes to business, pure 
and simple, it is in the South that the negro is given 
a man's chance in the commercial world." 1 " 

The Bulletin of the Inter-Municipal Committee on 
Household Research is authority for the statement 
that the Boston Reform League has been unable to se- 
cure an equal chance for colored girls in obtaining em- 
ployment, aud cannot secure places for more than 
half who apply. "Negroes who specialize in house- 
work duplicate the experience of a colored butler for 
whom the league tried for three months to find a place, 
but without success. He was neat in his person and 
good looking, and was highly recommended. He stat- 
ed that he had answered, in all, two hundred adver- 
tisements, but he was invariably refused the position 
simply because he was a colored man. It is not sur- 
prising, therefore, that on leaving Boston to return to 
New York, he said: 'These Boston people beat me. 
They will have mass-meetings and raise money to help 
Mr. Washington educate the miggers' down South, 
but they will let a decent Northerner starve before 
they will give him a chance to earn an honest living." 13 

"Washington, Future of the American Negro, 76. 

12 Washington, Up From Slavery, 219-220. 

13 Bulletin, New York City, May 1905, p. 15. Quoted by Stone, 
American Race Problem, 161. 



3 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

Dr. William N. D. Berry, for many years pastor 
of a Colored Congregational Church in Springfield, 
Mass., says that 86 per cent of the colored labor in his 
city on January 1, 1905, was confined to the lower 
strata of industry, because the large number fitted for 
other occupations were "debarred by pure race preju- 
dice," which has closed the door of industrial oppor- 
tunity against these men as a class," they suffering "a 
merciless industrial ostracism which shuts out the 
capapble and worthy negro because God chose to cre- 
ate him black." And Dr. Berry says that his study of 
conditions in Springfield should be "of more than local 
significance, inasmuch as the situation here in Spring- 
field is fairly typical of the black man's condition 
throughout the North." 14 

Dr. Du Bois in The Philadelphia Negro says, "It 
is a paradox of the times that young men and women 
from some of the best negro families of the city . . have 
actually had to go to the South to get work, if they 
wished to be aught but chambermaids and boot- 
blacks." 15 

The one great primal right of man is the right to 
labor and to live ; the right to have the proper wage of 
skill; the right to toil wherever human needs make 
work for human hands. Here is the foundation upon 
which the family is reared. This is the "door of hope," 
upon whose closing follow idleness and crime, destitu- 
tion and vice, vagrancy and death, for the masses of 
the race. The South has been much accused of clos- 
ing the "door of hope" to the negroes. According to 
the testimony of the sufferers themselves we of the 
North are surely far from guiltless in this respect in 
our relations with them. 

The first five chapters of this book will give a pic- 
of the status of the negro in Ohio before the Civil War, 
with especial attention to the legal obstacles put in his 

" Springfield Weekly Republican, Feb. 10, 1905. 
u The Philadelphia Negro 1899, pp. 395"396. 



INTRODUCTION 9 

way to keep hiin out of the State and to keep hiin down 
after he once got into the State. These obstacles were 
the laws commonly known as the "Black Laws." These 
laws were found in every Northern State but were of 
varying degrees of rigor. They segregated the negroes 
as an inferior class under grave social, civil, and polit- 
ical disabilities. Without going into details, it may be 
said that in the Northwest free negroes could not tes- 
tify against a white, serve on juries, vote, or send their 
children to the public schools ; they were forbidden, in 
some cases, to enter the State without giving bonds 
against tneir becoming paupers. Indiana in 1S51 by 
an enormous majority, the vote standing 108,513 to 
20,951, decreed that all negroes should be excluded 
from coming into the State. 10 Illinois on June 17, 
1862, gave a majority of 100,590 out of a total of 213, 
202 votes cast on the proposition, iu favor of the con- 
tinued exclusion of the negro from Illinois. Other 
States of the North excluded the negro and none of 
them wanted him. 

Suffrage was denied to the negro in almost all the 
Northern States before the Civil War. When the Fif- 
teenth Amendment was adopted in 1870 the negro 
could vote nowhere in the United States except in New 
York and five of the New England States. Connecti- 
cut, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Colorado in 1805 vot- 
ed on the question of giving the franchise to negroes, 
and in each case it was decided in the negative 

Many things more might be mentioned here, such 
as the treatment of the negroes in New York City dur- 
ing the draft riots of 1863 and the Springfield, Illi- 
nois, race riots of very recent years, to show that in 
the North generally there has been and still is the 
same race prejudice as in the State of Ohio with which 
this book is particularly concerned. With the author 
of Studies in the American Race Problem I believe 

10 Indiana Statesman, Sept. 3, 1851. 



io THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

that "the people of this country cannot forever misun- 
derstand each other over this racial problem, 
— and in all this I hold no firmer conviction 
than that the greatest beneficiary of a better 
knowledge of each other bv American white 
men will be the American negro." In this book I mean 
to take no attitude favoring North or South, white 
man or black man, but I endeavor to take the attitude 
of the scholar seeking truth for truth's sake. Some- 
times this truth will make the white man blush, and 
sometimes it will make the colored man hang his head. 
But in both cases the final result must for many rea- 
sons be beneficial. The joy and satisfaction expressed 
by so many of the colored people whom I interviewed 
over the prospect of having the whole truth revealed 
by a writer of the white race furnished the biggest sur- 
prise of my whole investigation. The following ex- 
cerpts from letters written to the author by Mr. F. D. 
Patterson, a large and prosperous carriage manufac- 
turer of Greenfield, Ohio, and a graduate of the Ohio 
State University, will show the attitude of the better 
class of the negro race: "If it is encouragement to 
you to know that your work is not only appreciated by 
us but is also needed by our entire State and Nation, 
black and white, you have every reason to feel encour- 
aged. The man who can tell the whole truth, the real 
truth, and get it read, is the one we most need now. 
We think sometimes that writers on both sides shrink 
from the whole truth. Men of our race simply will 
not see and appreciate our own shortcomings and limi- 
tations, and the undoubted "drag" we are at this pres- 
ent time. A few even go further like Mr. Washington 
and then we "blush." Men of your race insist on con- 
fusing the issue in order that they may not see. It is 
an unpleasant duty to be sure you have before you, but 
it is necessary. Indeed, it is an opportunity for your 
race that only a few such men as yourself will succeed 



INTRODUCTION n 

in saving and improving for your race. The man who 
strips the subject -'naked' and tells the truth is the 
man. AVe will all catch up with him in a few years 
and will appreciate him then if not now. We desire 
one-half dozen copies of your book." 



PART I 

THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT 

CHAPTER I. 

Feeling Toward the Negro in the Constitutional 

Convention, 1802. 

The first constitutional convention for the Stale 
of Ohio assembled in the town of Chillicothe on the 
first Monday in November, 1802. The minutes 1 of this 
convention are very brief and probably very incom- 
plete, but from them Ave can easily see that the negro 
and his status in the new State were very important 
issues 

Six different motions relating to the negroes were 
voted upon, and each one of these resulted in a close 
vote, the ayes and nays being recorded in cadi in- 
stance. We shall consider them separately and in the 
order of their appearance in the convention. 

The committee on electoral qualifications report- 
ed and granted suffrage only to the "white male in- 
habitants." 2 A motion was immediately made to strike 
out the word "white." This motion was lost by a vote 

of 14 to 19. 

A second motion was then made to grant suffrage 
to those negroes only who were then resident in the 
State if within a specified time they made a record of 
their citizenship. This motion was carried, the vote 
being almost the reverse of that of the preceding 
motion, standing 19 to 15. 

The friends of the negro now took heart and im- 
mediately introduced another motion to this effect: 

1 Journal of Const. Con. 1802. Reprinted in index to Senate 
Journal of 1827. 

2 Journal of Const. Con. 1802. Nov. 22. 



i 4 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

"Provided that the male descendants of such male ne- 
groes and mulattoes as shall be recorded shall be en- 
titled to the same privilege." This motion was lost by 
one vote, 17 voting against it and 16 in its favor. 

A fourth motion on the negro question was then 
made in the following words: "No negro or mulatto 
shall ever be eligible to any office, civil or military, or 
give their oath in any court of justice against a white 
person, be subject to do military dut}^, or pay a poll 
tax in this State: Provided always and it is fully un- 
derstood and declared that all negroes and mulattoes, 
now in, or who may hereafter reside in this State, 
shall be entitled to all the privileges of citizens of this 
State, not excepted by this constitution." This mo- 
tion was carried by a vote of 19 to 16. 

A fifth motion was then made to rescind the ac- 
tion taken on the second motion, previously mentioned, 
where by a vote of 19 to 15 they had given the right to 
vote to colored men resident in Ohio if they should 
make record of their citizenship by a certain time. The 
vote on this motion to rescind was a tie, 17 veas and 17 
nays. By the deciding vote of the president, Edward 
Tiffin, the motion carried, and the negro was thereby 
completely excluded from the voting privilege. 

A sixth motion followed, having as its object the 
blotting out of the action in the fourth motion, where- 
by the negro was declared forever ineligible to any of- 
fice, civil or military, barred from giving oath against 
a white person, etc. This motion carried by one vote, 
3 r eas 17, nays 16. 

The discussions regarding the status of the negro 
were becoming so warm and the two sides were so ev- 
enly balanced that fears were entertained that the ob- 
ject of their coming together would be wholly defeat- 
ed. This, according to Burnett, so frightened the 
members of the convention that they abandoned all 
the propositions that had been made, and proceeded 
to form a constitution having no direct reference to 



HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT I5 

the status of the negro, but embracing only the free 
white population, who alone were represented in the 
body. 8 

The wisdom, or necessity, of this move will be 
plainly seen when we look for a moment at the votes 
recorded on the six above-mentioned motions. There 
were 201 votes cast. 99 were in the interest of the ne- 
gro, and 102 votes were against him. There were 
twelve members of the convention that voted for him 
on every one of the six motions, and thirteen members 
who voted against him on all six. So there were three 
more votes cast against him than for him, and there 
was one more of those who stood solidly against him 
than there were of those who remained constantly for 
him. 

This is important, as showing the feeling toward 
the negro as a man, a free man, one century ago. 
Should he receive the rights and privileges as citizens 
that were enjoyed without question by the worst of 
the white race? This convention of representative 
men decided that he should not. 

So far we have considered the feelings of the con- 
vention toward the negro as a prospective citizen. We 
shall now look into what they thought of putting him 
in slavery. One would hardly think that a prop- 
osition to establish slavery in one of the States of the 
Northwest Territory, which had been declared free 
forever, would be entertained so soon after the decisive 
vote on the Northwest Ordinance. But it was enter- 
rained and even came within one vote of passing the 
convention. Many maintained that the provisions of 
the Ordinance of 1TS7 were binding on the district on- 
ly as a territory and, consequently, that Ohio, as a 
State, was free to determine for herself whether she 
should admit or exclude slavery. 4 There were others 

3 Burnett's Notes on Northwest Territory, 355- 

4 This view in more recent years is accepted generally as the 
correct one. 



!S THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

who thought that the growth of the State would be 
greatly quickened by allowing Southern planters to 
immigrate with their slaves; hence they desired to 
sanction slavery for a term of years. 

The question of slavery first arose in the commit- 
tee on the formation of a bill of rights, of which 
John W. Brown of Hamilton county was the chair- 
man. Mr. Brown submitted the following statement 
to the committee : "No person shall be held in slavery, 
if a male, after he is thirty-five years of age; or, if a 
female, after twenty-five years of age." 5 

Ephraim Cutler, a member of this committee, 
moved that this section be laid on the table until the 
next meeting of the committee, and suggested that 
each member of the committee, "to avoid any warmth 
of feeling," should prepare a section in writing which 
would express fully his views upon the subject. The 
committee met again the next morning, and Judge 
Cutler, being called upon for his statement of the sec- 
tion, read to them as follows : 

"There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary 
servitude in this State, otherwise than for punishment 
of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly con- 
victed ; Nor shall any male person, arrived at the age 
of twenty-one years, or female person, arrived at the 
age of eighteen years, be held to serve any person as a 
servant, under pretense of indenture or otherwise, 
unless such person shall enter into such indenture 
Avliile in a state of perfect freedom, and on condition 
of a bona fide consideration received for their service, 
except as before excepted. Nor shall any indenture of 
any negro or mulatto, hereafter made and executed out 
of the State, or if made in the State, where the term of 
service exceeds one year, be of the least validity, except 
those given in the case of apprenticeships." 

This wording of the section, completely prohibit- 

6 J. P. Cutler, Life and Times of Judge Ephraim Cutler, 74. 
"J. P. Cutler, Life and Times of Judge Ephraim Cutler, 75. 



HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT 17 

ing slavery and also wiping out long indenture and ap- 
prenticeship, was very different from Mr. Brown's sec- 
tion, which practically would have admitted slavery 
into the State in full force, but nominally would have 
circumscribed it with age limits. 

The committee debated the section for some time 
and finally by a vote of five to four put through 
Judge Cutler's wording of it, When it was reported 
to the convention another struggle took place and 
again it passed with the bare majority of one vote and 
was incorporated into the constitution without 
change. Thus near did Ohio, the first State to be carv- 
ed out of the Northwest Territory, come to setting the 
precedent of establishing slavery on this ground that 
the national government had declared should be for- 
ever free from it. 

The make-up of this convention is interesting. 
While we find some New Englanders, coming mostly 
form the north-eastern and south-eastern parts of the 
State, from the Western Reserve and the Marietta col- 
ony, by far the most of the members were from the 
Southern States of Virginia and Kentucky. 

But we find them badly divided and mixed up on 
the negro question. There is little evidence of the 
Southerners voting solidly against the negro and the 
New Englanders for him. For instance, Charles W. 
Byrd, a Virginian of the Virginians, stood firmly for 
the electoral right to be given to the negroes then resi- 
dent in Ohio and also to their descendants, while on 
the other hand Huntington of Cleveland, and Me- 
Intyre of Marietta, scions of New England stock, were 
with Massie and Worthington, both from Virginia, 
against negro suffrage. On a motion made in the con- 
vention to strike out a large portion of the section for- 
bidding slavery, introduced by Judge Cutler, we find 
the following Virginians voting in the negative: 
Abrams, Baldwin, Browne, Byrd, Carpenter, Darling- 
ton, Donaldson, Goforth, Kirker and Worthington. 




MAP 1-OHSG- fgOO 
NEG80 POPULATION 
TOTAL 337 



TRUMBULL 



YNt , — ~ 1'J^ZZ. -'SS 



3J 








f 






MDAMS 
15 



HA?Z VOTES \H CONSTlTUTJONAr CONVENTION J?0l 
DETERMINING STATl/S OF FRLE NEGRO. 
SIX MOTIONS MADE^ND MAP SHCWS VOTE Of EACH 
PSLEgA Tf ON ZACfL MOTION. 

ll A WAYNE COUNT] 



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ftES!2>£*r- 11 MIS, IfNMS. 

3. SAME Td THEIR CHUttRLN - /IAYBS j /7M*yf. 

H- TO EXCLVPE NEGRO rfUM ALL fVBUd OFffCES AND 

from man* to testify against wmres—jfAYts, 

5", TO RESCIND h\ot\on a — ITAVES,i7 



A AYS. 




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TC THE HE&RO 



20 



THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 



Of these last named gentlemen the following, 
Abranis, Baldwin, Carpenter, Darlington, Donaldson, 
Kirker, and Worthington, although they did not ap- 
pear to want the negroes in slavery in Ohio, yet were 
most ardent in keeping the free negro also out of the 
State, as evidenced by the fact that on every one of the 
six motions made in the convention on the status of 
the colored man they voted against him. 

In this convention that sat a century ago, it is 
easy to see the same human nature working in regard 
to the negro as at the present day, to see the same in- 
consistencies in the statement of the feelings of indi- 
viduals, and to see staunch supporters of equal rights 
and equally ardent opponents. To illustrate my mean- 
ing further than was brought out in the preceding par- 
agraph, let us consider a few individual votes. Browne, 
of Hamilton county, voted for giving the ballot to all 
negroes and, when this motion was lost and another 
made to give the ballot to the negroes then living in 
Ohio, he voted against it. This same man we have al- 
ready found asking that negro slavery be introduced 
into the State. Byrd and Morrow of Hamilton county, 
Grubb of Boss county, and Darlington of Adams, fa- 
vored negro suffrage and at the same time were un- 
willing for negroes to hold any offices or be permitted 
to testify against Avhite men. Several members we 
find voting one way at one time and later voting just to 
the contrary. Thirteen of the thirty-five members 
were against the negro on every measure, and twelve 
were for him with equal consistency. And the more 
one studies the votes of this convention the more he is 
convinced that what is true today was true at that 
time; namely, that white men in dealiug with the ne- 
gro problem are controlled more by feeling than by 
reason. The continuance of this fact throughout the 
period reviewed will be one of the most evident points 
brought out by this book. 



CHAPTER II. 
Legal Status, 1802—1849. 

We have seen in the study of the constitutional 
convention that much effort was put forth to establish 
clearly the position of negroes in the body politic. This 
effort came to naught, for the convention finished its 
work without once incorporating the word "negro," or 
alluding to the race except in the article on slavery. 
Negroes were not recognized as having any political 
existence and were given no political rights. They 
were to occupy the same relation to the government as 
Indians or unnaturalized foreigners. All the rights 
and privileges under the constitution were given to 
white men. The enumeration for purposes of appor- 
tionment of the senators and representatives was to be 
"of all white male inhabitants" 1 Article IV, Sec. 1, 
says, "In all elections, all white male inhabitants, 
above the age of twenty-one years, shall enjoy the right 
of an elector." Thus did the organic law of the State 
indirectly place the negroes outside the body politic. 
With these exceptions the Legislature was left free to 
dispose of them as it saw fit. 

The matter was very soon taken up by this body. 
In 1801 the Legislature passed the first of the laws, af- 
terwards so well known as the Black Laws. This 
law was "to regulate black and mulatto persons" 2 and 
to prescribe the manner in which they might enter the 
State. It declared that no negro or mulatto should be 
allowed to settle in the State unless he could furnish 
a certificate from some court in the United States of 
his actual freedom. The blacks already living in the 
State must register before the following June with 
the county clerk, giving the names of their children. 
For each name a fee of twelve and one-half cents was 



1 Const., Art. I, Sec. 2,6. 

a Passed Jan. 5, 1804, Laws of Ohio 11:63. 



22 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

to be charged. No white man could employ a negro 
for one hour unless the negro could show a certificate 
of freedom, and any violator of this law was subject to 
a fine of from ten to fift}^ dollars. The same penalty 
was attached to harboring, or hindering the capture 
of, a fugitive slave. Besides this penalty the white 
man employing a negro was obliged to pay fifty cents 
per day for his services to his owner, if one should ap- 
pear. 

This law of 1804 was not yet stringent enough to 
suit the people of Ohio, and we find that three years 
later, 1807, the Legislature proceeded to strike a hard- 
er blow at negro immigration by so amending the pre- 
vious act that (1) no negro should be allowed to set- 
tle in Ohio unless he could within twenty days give 
bonds to the amount of five hundred dollars signed by 
two bondsmen, who should guarantee his good behav- 
ior and support, (2) the fine for harboring or conceal- 
ing a fugitive was raised from fifty to one hundred 
dollars, one-half to go to the informer, (3) the propo- 
sition made in the constitutional convention (1802) 
to prohibit negro evidence against a white person, was 
enacted, and Ohio, following the lead of slave 
holding States, was the first 3 of the Northern States to 
declare that negroes should not be allowed to give evi- 
dence in any cause, or matter of controversy, when 
either party to the same was a white person ; or in any 
prosecution of the State against any white person. 4 

In the Act of Dec. 30, 1803, organizing the militia 
of the State it was declared that white people only 
were eligible. 

3 Ohio's example was followed by two of the other Northern 
States. Illinois by Act of February2, 1827, said that "no negro or 
mulatto shall be a witness in any court against a white person." In- 
diana, in an Act approved December 20, 1865, declared that no negro 
should bear witness against a white man if he had entered, or should 
afterward enter, the State contrary to the thirteenth article of the 
State Constitution, forbidding their immigration. 

*Act January 25, 1807, Laws of Ohio, V:53. 



LEGAL STATUS 23 

By the Act of February 9, 1831, entitled "An Act 
Relating to Juries," it was declared that all jurors 
should have the "qualifications of electors," which of 
course deprived the colored men of this privilege. 

In 1838, March 7, the Legislature passed an aci 
for the support of common schools, to provide a fund 
"for the education of all the white youth in this 
State." 5 No provision for the education of the colored 
children had ever been made by the Legislature, and it 
was not provided in this act. The property of black 
and mulatto persons was exempted from taxes in rais- 
ing this fund. 7 

The first State provision for the education of col- 
ored youth was in the Act of February 21, 1818. By 
this act, which was so nearly a farce that it was re 
pealed the following year, the property of the negroes 
was to be taxed for the establishment of separate 
schools for themselves wherever the number of colored 
youth of school age numbered twenty. If there were 
not that number, the taxes on the property of the col- 
ored people were to be turned into the common fund, 
and it was the duty of the white people "to admit said 
black or colored children "into the white schools" up- 
on the same terms as if they were white '.Provided/ no 
written objection be filed with the directors, signed by 
any person having a child in such school, or by any 
legal voter of such district," 9 

Such were the famous Black Laws. To sum them 
up briefly: (a) negroes were forbidden to enter the 
State (we say forbidden because it was virtually im- 
possible for them to fulfill the entrance requirements | . 

8 Act of March 7, 1838, Sec. i, Laws of Ohio, XXXVI, 21. 

'When Ihc bill was up for consideration, Mr. King moved to 
strike out the word "white" wherever it occurred therein, which was 
defeated by a vote of 30 to 2, Messrs. King and Wade alone voting 
in the affirmative. — Senate Journal, XXXVI. 
S 7 Act of March 7, 1838, Sec. 2. 

8 Emphasis mine. 

Act of February 24, 1848, Sec. 5. 



24 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

(b) They were debarred from the militia, (c) They 
could not under the existing conditions send their 
children to school, (d) They could bear no witness 
against white men, no matter what were the circum- 
stances, (e) They were tried by juries of white men. 
(f) They could not work unless they carried their cer- 
tificates of freedom about them. 

The restriction imposed by the Black Laws fell 
with full force upon all people having any negro blood 
in their veins until the year 1831, when the Supreme 
Court of the State in the case of Polly Gray vs. Ohio 
declared that a person having more white blood than 
negro blood in his veins was a white person and free 
from the disabilities of the Black Laws. The case 
leading to this decision involved the eligibility of a 
negro as a witness in the trial of a quadroon charged 
with crime. The decision interpreted the word mu- 
latto in the acts of 1804 and 1807 to mean a half-breed 
and held that a man of a race nearer white than a mu- 
latto should be given the privileges of the whites. 10 

This decision met with stubborn resistance 
throughout the State, and we find the same question 
being carried up to the Supreme Court time and 
again 11 until the decision was finally set aside. In the 
case of Williams 12 vs. Directors of School District No. 
6, etc., in 1834, the decision was upheld, and also twice 
in the year 1842 ; 13 but in the last two cases it was de- 
cided by a bare majority vote, and much bitterness was 
manifested in the discussions. Justice N. C. Read, 

10 Ohio Reports IV, 345- 

11 1834. Williams vs. School Directors, Wright's Reports I, 78. 
1842. Edwill Thackcr vs. J. Hawk et al. Ohio Reports II. 
1842. Parker Jeffries vs. Ankeny ct al. Ohio Reports II, 372- 

373- 

1859. J 'an Camp vs. Logan Board of Ediic. November Ses- 
sion. 

"Hamilton County, May Term, 1834. Wrights Reports I, 78. 

13 Parker Jeffries vs. John Ankeny ct al. Ohio Reports II, 372- 
373. 

F.dzdll Thackcr vs. John Hawk ct al, 1842. Ohio Reports, II. 



LEGAL STATUS 25 

in dissenting from the opinion of the majority in the 
Edwill Thaeker case where the court had declared 
that a man more than one-half white or less than one- 
half negro should be privileged to vote, said: "The 
(•(institution, in defining the color qualification of 
an elector, does not employ the phrases, — partly while 
— more than black — all persons less than half black, — 
but simply the word white. This word 'white' means 
pure white, unmixed." 

Having looked at the enactments and the Su- 
preme Court interpretations, let us now consider why 
these laws were passed and retained on the statute 
books. According to the United States census, there 
were 337 colored people in Ohio in 1800; 1,890 in 
1810 ; 4,723 in 1820 ; 9,586 in 1830 ; and 17,312 in 1810. 
From this we may see that they came into the State 
rapidly. Their rate of increase was usually greater 
than of the whites during these decades. They nearly 
all settled in the southern counties. Most of the white 
people of this region were from Kentucky and Virgin- 
ia. They looked upon the free negroes as being beneath 
respect. Many other whites were bound up socially 
and in a business way with these southerners and 
adopted their views. Most of the population of the 
St;ite was in the southern portion at this time, and 
of course it dominated the Legislature's attitude. Fur- 
ther, many slaves were undoubtedly escaping from 
their masters in Kentucky and Virginia, and the com- 
plaints of their masters that they were being received 
in Ohio of course caught the ear of their friends in 
( Miio, who proceeded to have laws made restricting im- 
migration and incidentally facilitating the recapture 
of fugitive slaves. 

The white people of Ohio did not want the ne- 
groes among them. This is a most evident fact. Win- 
did they not want them? To what extent were they 
justified on the grounds of expediency? The answer 
to these questions is most interesting. What was 



2 6 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

there about the negroes escaping from the plantation, 
or coming from a Southern State in any capacity, that 
could make them desirable citizens? Were they intel- 
ligent citizens? They had been kept by law in complete 
illiteracy. In Africa their ancestors had lived in hea- 
then ignorance and in America the opportunities of 
Christian enlightenment for them had been very 
slight. Were they of value industrially? Many 
were lazv and shiftless; almost all of them had been 
trained as pieces of machinery to do the work of a 
certain kind that required no thinking. Generally 
this kind of work was not to be had in the North. Many 
of the negroes that came from the South were old and 
worn out. In this state they had been freed by their 
masters and, being unable to stand the rigors of the 
laws against free colored people in their native States, 
drifted north. What then was there about the negroes 
to appeal for help from the white people of Ohio? 
But one thing, their utter helplessness, their abject 
need of philanthropy; and this did not make a strong 
impression upon a majority of the voters of Ohio. 
Hence we find the Black Laws. 

The numbers of blacks entering Ohio, and espe 
cially their character, actuallv frightened many most 
excellent citizens; and one must sympathize with 
them, when he sees but a few of the conditions. 

On the 14th of April, 1827, seventy negroes in one 
company settled in Lawrence county. They were a 
part of a stock of slaves emancipated by a man in Vir- 
ginia. "These unfortunate creatures have little or no 
property of value — many of them ragged and dirty. 
The writer of this would censure none for acts of kind- 
ness to such, yet as he regards the moral character and 
welfare of society, he cannot view these rapid acces- 
sions without some degree of alarm."" 

The following from The Supporter, a weekly 
newspaper published at Chilli cothe, June 16, 1810, i*-: 

u O!.io State Journal, May 3, 1827. 






pAULViHC 



MAP 3 OHIO- 1^30 

NEGRO POPULATION 
TOTAL 95*36 



o 
VNtmm r 



PARKS 



56 



M 






-207 
CHAMPAIGN 






i 






itfjpq 



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'LAKfflEAKE, 



28 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

so typical and so expressive that I shall quote at some 
length : 

"By the following letter from a gentleman on a 
tour through Virginia to the editor, it will appear that 
we are to have a colony of free negroes (no less than 
five hundred) planted in our adjoining county. Much 
as we commiserate the situation of those who, when 
emancipated, are obliged to leave their country or 
again be enslaved, we trust our constitution and laws 
are not so defective as to suffer us to be overrun by 
such a wretched population : 



u < 



Kichmond, Va., May 10, 1819. 



" 'Dear Sir : — Since my arrival in this county 
I have understood that a large family of negroes, 
consisting of about five hundred, have lately been 
liberated and are to be marched to Ohio, and there 
settled on land provided for them agreeably to 
the will of a Mr. Gess, who formerly owned them. 
There are persons now engaged in collecting the 
poor miserable beings from different quarters and 
driving them like cattle to Goochland county, 
from whence they will take up their line of march 
to Ohio. I am told that they are perhaps as de- 
praved and ignorant a set of people as any of their 
kind and that their departure is hailed with joy 
by all those who have lived in their neighbor- 
hood. Ohio will suffer seriously from the iniqui- 
tous policy pursued by the States of Virginia and 
Kent, in driving all their free negroes upon us. 
The people of Ohio are bound in justice to them- 
selves to adopt some counteracting measure. 
Many people here are of the opinion that we may 
be compelled to introduce slavery in Ohio in self- 
defense, and they appear to be gratified that we 
are suffering many of the evils attending it, with- 



LEGAL STATUS 29 

out (as they call it) any of the benefits. I have 
been gratified to tell them what I believe to be 
true — that nineteen-twentieths of the people of 
Ohio are so opposed to slavery that they would 
not consent to its introduction under any circum- 
stances; and, although they commiserate the sit- 
uation of those who have been liberated and com- 
pelled to abandon their country or again be made 
slaves, yet in justice to themselves and their pos- 
terity they will refuse admittance to such a pop- 
ulation. 

Yours most ob't., 

'A. T.' 

"(Editor) We understand from a respectable au- 
thority that 270 of said negroes have landed at Ripley 
and are to settle near the center of Brown county on 
White Oak, the residue of 500 to follow soon after." 10 

John Randolph, of Roanoke, before his death in 
1833 set free 518 slaves 10 and bought for them a large 
estate in Mercer County, Ohio. It was arranged that 
each one was to have 40 acres and a cabin. The white 
inhabitants of the county rose en masse against the in- 
flux of the negroes, and Judge Leigh distributed them 
around Troy, Piqua, Sidney and Xenia. 17 

From a perusal of these incidents, of which there 
are many, one can see the problem that confronted the 
people of Ohio in the early days and see the enactment 
of the Black Laws from a little different point of view 
than the one generally taken. They justified t hemselv- 
es in their action on the ground that it was necessary 
for the preservation of the prosperity of the State and 
for the good of their posterity. Judge Burnet of Cin- 
cinnati defended the laws as "justifiable and com- 

15 The Supporter, Chillicothe, June 16, 1819. 

"Article on John Randolph, "The American Cyclopedia." 

17 Cincinnati Enquirer, July 31, 1909. 



, THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

mendable." 18 The committee on the colored popula- 
tion, reporting to the Legislature in 1832, said : 

"We must exclude a people whose residence 
among us is degrading to themselves, and fraught with 
so much evil to the community. The negroes form a 
distinct and degraded caste and are forever excluded 
by the fiat of society and the laws of the land from all 
hopes of equality in social intercourse and political 
privileges. Even now, when this people constitute 
less than one-hundredth part of our population, the 
evils arising from their residence among us are seri- 
ously felt, and especially where they are congregated 
in considerable numbers in the larger cities: (1) By 
the exclusion of a large amount of the labor of white 
men who will not degrade themselves in society by 
adopting the employment of, and coming into compe- 
tition with, the blacks, (2). By the demoralization of 
those white citizens who do, by association with, and 
adopting the ordinary avocations of, blacks, lose that 
standing and consideration in society which is one of 
the strongest safeguards against vicious conduct, (3) 
By habits of petty pilfering and mendicity, which are, 
and must of necessity be, prevalent among a people 
isolated in society and deprived of the highest motives 
to honest industry ; and which, besides imposing on the 
community the burden of an idle population, fill our 
jails with criminals of the hopeless description, (4) 
And lastly, by the injurious effects upon our youth, of 
the residence among us of a people whose situation is 
an anomaly in our social system and a libel upon our 
free and equal laws — a people whose degraded and de- 
pendent condition and dissolute conduct furnish at 
the same time examples of depravity and facilities 
for the commission of juvenile offenses." 19 

While different reasons may be found in the above 
extract for the legislation against the negro, there is 

18 Niks' Register, XXXVIII, 145- 
10 Ohio State Journal, Feb. I, 1832. 



LEGAL STATUS 31 

one that stands out most prominently — and that is the 
antipathy and contempt entertained by the whites to- 
ward the negro. This fact is most vividly brought out 
by the remarks of Mr. Worthington of Ross county, 
made when speaking before the House upon the above 
committee report. He said : 

"Never can we expect any elevation of moral sen- 
timent from a people upon whom society has affixed 
the brand of infani}' from their birth, with whom it is 
considered disgraceful for the meanest white man to 
associate. Are not these people excluded by our con- 
stitution from the right of suffrage and by our laws 
from the benefits and blessings of free schools; and 
tli is, too, from the dire necessity imposed by the feeling 
of the community that their very touch is contamina- 
tion? Are not such as these the benefits accorded to 
those who are clothed by the sable skin of the Af- 
rican?" 20 

Having seen what the Black Laws were and why 
they were enacted, let us now consider how they were 
enforced. 

The law requiring a negro to give bond for five 
hundred dollars and to exhibit and have recorded a 
certificate of freedom before he could settle in the 
State was probably the least strictly enforced of any 
of the Black Laws ; But we cannot say that it was a 
dead letter by any means. Mr. Worthington, speak- 
ing before the House in 1832, said that this was proved 
by the fact "that Ohio, although nearly half-encir- 
cled by slave States, contained a less percentage of 
blacks than almost any other State in the Union."- 1 
A gentleman writing in the Ohio State Journal in 
the issue of May 3, 1827, about the company of seventy 
negroes settling in Lawrence county, stated that 
many of them had already obtained security as the law 

:o Ohio State Journal, Feb. 1, 1832. 
21 Ohio State Journal, Feb. I, 1832. 



32 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

required and that the rest would do so within twenty 
days. William Jay in 1836 said : 

"A large proportion of the present colored pop- 
ulation of the State of Ohio must have entered it in 
ignorance of this iniquitous law, or in defiance of it. 
That the law has not been universally enforced prov- 
es that the people of Ohio are less profligate than their 
Legislature; that it has remained on the statute book 
thirty-two years proves the depraved state of public 
opinion and the horrible persecution to which the 
colored people are legally exposed. But let it not 
be supposed that this vile law is in fact obsolete." 22 

In the spring of 1829, the Supreme Court, sitting 
in Cincinnati, declared this law to be constitutional. 23 
In many localities, where the negroes were especially 
hated, the white people began immediately to enforce 
the law with vigor. 

On January 21, 1830, all colored people in Ports- 
mouth (a town in the southern part of the State on 
the Ohio river) were forcibly deported from the town, 
according to N. W. Evans in his History of Scioto 
County. They were not only warned to go, but they 
were driven out by order of the town authorities. 
There were eighty black people in this moving. 

In 1829 Cincinnati decided to enforce the law, 
and gave the colored people sixty days in which to 
get their security or leave the city. The sixty days 
passed ; few of the blacks had gotten the security, and 
the authorities hesitated. The citizens then became 
exasperated and resolved upon force. Mob rule then 
held sway for three days and nights, in which many 
were killed or wounded. The colored people rapidly 
left the city after this. Between one and two thous- 
and went to Canada and formed a settlement. 24 

23 Jay, Miscellaneous Writings on Slavery. 

23 Ohio State Journal, July 16, 1829. 

'* Proceedings of Ohio Anti-Slavery Convention, held at Put- 
nam in 1835, 19-20. Also The Emporium, published at Cincinnati, 
July 12, 1829. 



LEGAL STATUS 33 

The negroes' exclusion from the white school was 
virtually complete; for the white people regarded such 
mingling of the races with abhorrence, as giving social 
recognition to the negroes and contaminating the 
white children. The Legislature in 1829, fearful that 
some locality, a New England or a Quaker settlement, 
perhaps, might so far forget itself as to admit colored 
children to its schools, forbade in express terms all 
admissions of blacks and mulattoes into the public 
schools. I find but one instance in which this law was 
broken. Cleveland, the transplanted Yankee town of 
Ohio, was given its charter in 1835, and in this charter 
it was stated that the schools were to be "accessible to 
all white children." The Cleveland authorities never 
observed the word "white," but admitted the colored 
children, of whom there were always comparatively 
few, on equal terms with the whites. 25 

The part of the law of 1807 which forbade colored 
men to bear witness in court against whites was car- 
ried out to the letter, no matter what the circumstan- 
ces might be. A white man might rob, beat and kill 
a negro, and unless some white person were present 
he could escape all punishment. A case is recorded 
where a white man escaped conviction of murder 
where there were eight colored eye-witnesses, simply 
because sufficient testimony of white men could not 
be found. 26 In 1846 a white man lost his suit against 
a black man for the payment of a note, for the reason 
that the only witness which he could introduce in evi- 
dence was objected to and excluded on account of his 
color. The judge, in pronouncing his decision, said : 
"Let a man be Christian or infidel, let him be Jew or 
Turk or Mohammedan, let him be sunk to the 
depths of degredation, he may be a witness in court 
if he is not black ; the truth shall not be received from 

20 Ohio School Report, 1875-76, 32. 

29 Proceedings of Ohio Anti-Slavery Convention, held at Put- 
nam, 1835, 21. 



34 THE COLOR UNE IN OHIO 

a black man when a white man is the party." 27 The 
Supreme Court made one little exception to this, de- 
ciding that in case of a note for debt, a black man 
might swear to his own signature; otherwise any 
white person could forge his name and the black man 
would be entirely at his mercy, since no one could 
swear to his plea but himself. 28 

I can scarcely imagine an exception to the en- 
forcement of the laws against the negro serving in the 
militia or on a jury, and certainly none appears to be 
recorded. 

If we look at the question of the enforcement of 
the Black Laws as a whole therefore, we must con- 
clude that it was severe enough to give much concern 
to the negroes and to their friends, of whom we shall 
hear more in the next chapter. 

27 Jordan vs. Smith, Ohio Reports, XIV:20i. 

28 Jordan vs. Smith, Ohio Reports XIV : 199. 



CHAPTER III. 

Repeal op the Black Laws, 1849. 

Notwithstanding the great prejudice against 
negroes, as revealed in the last chapter, there were 
from the very first some ardent friends of the negro 
cause. In the constitutional convention of 1802, 
there were those who would have conferred the elect- 
oral privilege upon them and, in fact, some who would 
have made absolutely no distinction between the two 
races. 

From the time of that convention to about the 
year 1830 the negroes lived in comparative quiet 
throughout Ohio. The newspapers covering that 
period make scarcely a mention of them. Then sud- 
denly they appear in the limelight: they are forcibly 
ejected from many towns, they are forbidden by law 
to sit on juries and also to gain a legal residence in 
the State, while on the other hand 1 lie Society of 
Friends submits one of the first memorials to the 
Legislature, asking for the repeal of the Black Laws. 
This sudden agitation was undoubtedly the result of 
the founding of abolition societies and the active 
division of the people of the State into friends and 
foes of Southern policy. 1 This division was caused 
not only by the slavery question, but also by the way 
in which the Southerners called upon the people of 
the State of Ohio for laws for the return of fugitive 
slaves and, finally, by the rough manner in which 
they tried to enforce these demands. 2 

So from 1830 to 1849 we find the negro question 
receiving more and more of the attenl ion of the people 
of the State and, as the feeling of the people became 

1 Journal and Register, March n, 1839. 
' I [owell's Story of Ohio, 225. 
Caleb Atwater, History of Ohio, 323. 
Ohio State Journal, Sept. 4, 1839. 



3 6 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

more and more developed against the South and 
against slavery, we find the free negroes of Ohio prof- 
iting by the reflex influence of this sympathy bestowed 
upon their enslaved brothers and gaining in the num- 
ber of friends, real or apparent. 

Friendship for the negroes naturally expressed 
itself in efforts to repeal the Black Laws. In the ses- 
sions of the Legislature of 1829-30 and 1833-34, mem- 
orials were submitted, asking for their repeal. These 
memorials were submitted for consideration to the 
committee on the judiciary, which reported in both 
cases that it was "inexpedient to repeal the laws now 
in force." In the session of 1836-37, the Senate refused 
to receive a petition for the repeal. In 1840-41, the 
subject of repeal again being up, Dr. John Watkins, 
for the committee on public institutions, filed a long 
and carefully prepared report, the conclusion being 
that it "would be highly impolitic to repeal or modify 
the existing laws." The next year numerous petitions 
on the same subject were presented, and on the other 
hand petitions aiming to prevent the immigration of 
negroes into the State. In the session of 1843-44 
there were, in answer to petitions, two committee 
reports unfavorable to a repeal. In 1844-45 also the 
committees were against it. In 1846-47 the majority 
of the committee reported adversely, while Mr. Rus- 
sell, of Portage county, made a minority report in 
favor of the repeal. In the next session, 1847-48, there 
was taken exactly the same action, except that Mr. 
I {vers of Wayne county made the minority report. 3 
Finally, on February 10, 1849, what was popu- 
larly known as "the repeal of the Black Laws," was 
accomplished, when an act was passed repealing the 
laws of 1804 and 1807 regulating black and mulatto 
persons; "and all parts of other acts, so far as they 
enforce any special disabilities or confer any special 
privileges on account of color, are hereby repealed, 

8 House and Senate Journals for the years mentioned. 



REPEAL OF THE BLACK LAWS 37 

except the act of the 9th of February, 1831, relating 
to juries, and the act of the 11th of March, 1831, for 
the relief of the poor." 4 While this is generally spoken 
of and thought of as the act repealing the Black 
Laws, it is really an act modifying them. 

As a result of this law, negroes were no longer 
forbidden to enter the State, they could now give 
testimony in court against white people, and they were 
now provided with school privileges, though in sepa- 
rate school houses. They could not sit on juries, gain 
a legal residence in the State, go to the schools for 
whites, and of course, by the operation of the consti- 
tution, they could not exercise the voting privilege. 

Let us now look at some further reasons for the 
repeal of these laws and see just how it was accom- 
plished. The Black Laws of Ohio were notorious 
throughout the country. It was often said that the 
slave States themselves treated their free colored 
population with scarcely more oppression than did the 
free State of Ohio. During the presidential campaign 
of 1818, William H. Seward, in a speech at Cleveland, 
referred to the Black Laws as follows: 

"Reform your code, — extend a cordial welcome to 
the fugitive who lays his weary limbs at your door, 
and defend him as you would your paternal gods; 
correct j-our own error that slavery has any consti- 
tutional guaranty which may not be released and 
ought not to be relinquished. Say to slavery, when it 
shows its bond and demands the pound of flesh, that 
if it draws one drop of blood its life shall pay the 
forfeit." 5 

This mixing in of the free negro of Ohio with the 
anti-slavery feeling and this call to the more con- 
siderate and humane people of the State that they 
wipe off from their statute books such laws as were 
in some measure bringing upon the negro the very 

'Laws of Ohio, XLVII, 18. 

6 Speech at Cleveland, October 26, 1848, Seward's Work?, Ill 1301 



3 g THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

hardships that they were blaming the people of the 
South for, bore fruit and engaged the attention of 
political parties. 

The Free-soil party, made up mostly of Whigs 
with pronounced anti-slavery opinions, in the fall of 
1848 incorporated the following clause in their State 
platform: "Resolved, That while we desire a hom- 
ogeneous population for our State, and believe that we 
shall have it whenever slavery shall cease to force the 
victims of its tyranny upon the uncongenial North, 
we are inflexibly opposed to all class legislation and 
legalized injustice and therefore insist upon the repeal 
of the enactments commonly known as the Black 
Laws of Ohio." 6 The Whig party had always been 
regarded as being more friendly to the blacks than the 
Democratic party, but in 1848, the Whigs nominated 
and elected a Southern slave-holder for President of 
the United States. The Whig party of Ohio could not 
now take a stand for the repeal of the Black Laws, and 
the result was that many left its ranks and joined the 
Free-soil party. This party now assumed some im- 
portance, as it held the balance of power and was in a 
position to compel concessions from either the Whigs 
or the Democrats. 

In the House of Representatives in 1849, there 
were Free-soilers, "Old Line Whigs,'' as they were 
called, who "were for party, right or wrong," and 
Democrats. If the regular "Old Line Whigs" and the 
Whig-Free -soilers combined, they could about tie the 
vote of the Democrats. Besides these elements, there 
were in the House two Independents, as they called 
11 ici ii selves, Messrs. Morse of Lake county and Town- 
send of Lorain. These two had generally affiliated 
themselves with the Free-soilers, but, because of their 
refusal to bind themselves to support all legislation 
proposed by the Free-soilers, they had been read out 
of the party. As a result, the balance of power was 

" Ohio Statesman, December 30, 1848. 



REPEAL OF THE BLACK LAWS 39 

substantially thrown into the hands of these two men. 
They saw their advantage and decided to give their 
support to that party which would champion their 
measure. Being ardent sympathizers with the free 
colored people of Ohio, they set themselves the one 
task of accomplishing the repeal of the Black Laws. 
The circumstances were favorable in the extreme for 
accomplishing this task. They secured the repeal as 
the outcome of a political bargain with the Democratic 
and Free-soil parties- 
It was the year for Ohio to elect a United States 
Senator and also a judge for the Supreme Court of 
the State. Over these two offices the parties fought. 
The Free-soil candidate for Senator was Joshua R. 
Giddings, who was a personal friend of Mr. Morse, 
and was warmly supported by him, while Mr. Towns- 
end as earnestly favored Salmon P. Chase; but both 
were more anxious for the repeal of the Black Laws 
than for the election of any particular favorite of their 
own. It was agreed that Morse should propose to the 
Whigs that if they would vote for the Repeal Bill and 
for the election of Joshua R. Giddings as Senator, 
these two Independents (Morse and Townsend) would 
give their votes to the Whig candidate for the Su- 
preme Court. But the Whigs thought that to accept 
Giddings, with his Free-soil notions, was too great a 
price to pay and rejected the proposal. A similar 
proposal was made by Townsend to the Democrats, 
with merely the substitution of Chase for Gid- 
dings. And, with the conviction that the "Old Line 
Democrats" would come up to the standard of the 
Independents, Chase had acted with them. For this 
reason the proposal of Townsend was not altogether 
disagreeable to the Democratic members of the House, 
and the agreement was made. A bill was at once 
drawn up by Chase to repeal the Black Laws and to 
provide for the education of colored children. The 
bill was introduced into the House by Mr. Morse and 



4 o THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

carried by a large majority. In the Senate the bill was 
referred to a committee, which reported an amendment 
exempting from repeal the laws prohibiting colored 
people from a place on the jury and from admittance 
to poor houses and other State charity institutions. 7 
The committee's recommendations were accepted and 
were finally incorporated in the bill, which passed 
February 10, 1849. The vote in the House stood 53 
to 12 and in the Senate 23 to ll. 8 A Democrat and a 
Whig tried by hiding to dodge the vote but were 
dragged into the Assembly Chamber by the sergeant- 
at-arms. 9 

To summarize the repeal of the Black Laws 
briefly, we may say that two men accomplished the 
act. They were helped out by thirteen Free-soilers 
who, with them, really wanted repeal, and these fif- 
teen men were assisted by the Democratic party, which 
by principle had been, was at that time, and after- 
ward continued opposed to all attempts tending 
toward the equality of the white and black races. 
This standing principle, however, fell before the bribe 
of a United States Senator, a State Supreme Court 
judge, and "some other considerations," as the news- 
papers expressed it. 

7 When the committee reported to the Senate, Mr. Scott of 
Defiance County moved to recommit the bill to the standing com- 
mittee on the judiciary with the instruction "to so amend the bill 
that all colored persons be prohibited from holding real estate with- 
in the State of Ohio." (Senate Journal, January 24, 1849.) This 
motion was lost by but three votes, there being 16 yeas and 19 nays. 

8 Senate Journal, Feb. 5, 1849. 
House Journal, Jan. 30, 1849. 

Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society's publications, I, 
1 17-120. 

Magazine of Western History, VI, 341, 623. 

Schuckers' Chase, 95 Seq. 

Ohio State Journal, Fell. 24, March 17, 1849. 

Ohio Statesman, Feb. 26. March 5, 1849. 

(The last two sources mentioned were the chief organs of the 
Whig and Democratic parties respectively.) 

"Cincinnati Globe, Feb. 7, 1849. Quoted by T. C. Smith, The 
Liberty and Free Soil Parties, 169. 



REPEAL OF THE BLACK LAWS 41 

Having seen the manner in which these laws were 
repealed, it will be interesting to know how the people 
of the State felt about the action of their representa- 
tives. 

The Ohio State Journal, the leading Whig paper, 
in an editorial, February 24, 1849, said : 

"The announcement that the Black Laws are 
repealed is received in different quarters with alter- 
nate paeans and execrations; and we suppose it is 
lawful for us 'to rejoice with those who do rejoice/ 
though our sympathies do not enable us to enter very 
profoundly into the sorrows of those who mourn over 
an event which we regard as of so little intrinsic im- 
portance. Our sense of gratification at the repeal of 
the Black Laws does not result from any conviction 
that some great end in ethics or politics has thereby 
been attained ; we rejoice at the result because it is a 
consummation long and diligently sought by a large 
body of our fellow citizens, under the firm conviction, 
honestly entertained, that these laws were very op- 
pressive in their operation upon our colored popula- 
tion. It was doubtless thought by many that the 
repeal of these laws would greatly meliorate the con- 
dition of the colored race in Ohio. We think differ- 
ently and are of the opinion that it would puzzle the 
most intelligent of the colored race within our bord- 
ers, or the most ardent of their champions to point out 
the practical advantages which are to result to them 
from the repeal of these laws. It is but a fancied 
gain. 

"No act of legislation in this State for thirty 
years past has probably been received at different 
points with such diverse greetings as this act. Much 
of this feeling is the result of morbid sympathy on 
the one hand and prejudice on the other. The Western 
Reserve district is happy, but they have few subjects 
to be affected by the act. The colored population 
reside from choice in other localities and among a 



4 2 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

people with whose habits and prejudices they are 
familiar. These very distinctions are part and parcel 
of the very nature of both races, and can never be 
eradicated by statute law. In the localities of the 
southern part of the State where the colored popula- 
tion most abounds they will practically keep in force 
some of the laws that have been repealed by this act, 
especially the one denying them the right to bear 
witness against a white. Public opinion and the fact 
that men will be influenced in their litigation by a 
regard for their interests will be the power. For it is 
a fact notorious to all who are willing to see that 
nothing could (as a general rule) be more fatal to the 
merits of a case than an effort to sustain it by this 
description of testimony. This may be called preju- 
dice. Be it so. It is none the less potent for being so 
denominated, or for being so in fact. It is the preju- 
dice of education — ingrain in the very constitution of 
society, and cannot be eradicated by mere parliamen- 
tary forms and enactments." 10 

The Ohio Statesman, the leading Democratic 
organ, copying from The Clark County Democrat, in 
its issue of March 5, 1849, says : "We regret that a 
disposition exists on the part of our Democratic 
friends in some parts of the State to make a fuss about 
the repeal of the so-called Black Laws of Ohio. We 
are as fully aware as they possibly can be that it is an 
unpopular movement, and that the action of the 
Democrats on this question was wholly unexpected. 
* * * The Democratic party has always stood opposed 
to placing the black man upon an equality with the 
white. * * * We are decidedly opposed to repeal at 
this time." 11 

At Sugar Grove, in Fairfield county near Lan- 
caster, a great indignation meeting was held on 
February 15 and resolutions were adopted, scoring 

10 Ohio State Journal, Feb. 24, 1849. 
u Ohio Statcman, March 5, 1849. 



REPEAL OF THE BLACK LAWS 43 

the members of the Legislature. The editor of the 
Ohio Eagle, published in Lancaster, gave it as his 
opinion that the resolutions expressed the sentiments 
of two-thirds of the people of the county. Two of the 
resolutions are typical of the whole : 

"Resolved, That the majority of the members of 
the Ohio Legislature have betrayed the confidence 
reposed in them by their constituents and have proven 
that they are a set of base hypocrites and dishonest 
politicians. 

"Resolved, That we are opposed to free-soilism, 
abolitionism, demagogism and negroism." 12 

The repeal of the Black Laws, then, was in no 
way a sign that race prejudice was dying away. Of 
course it was a great consummation to those who had 
petitioned for it and longed for it during the previous 
years; but these were few in number in comparison 
with the great number of those throughout the State 
who would not turn over their hand to aid their black 
neighbors. The repeal was far from popular and far 
from indicating the sentiment of the State, and yet 
the laws were never re-enacted. It might be argued 
that this last fact proves that the repeal was in accord 
with the wishes of the people. But we must remember 
that (1) The enemies of the negroes were unorganiz- 
ed, while their friends were organized in the active 
Anti-slavery Society, (2) Just at this time and for the 
next few years there were many important national 
issues in which the negro question figured more or 
less, which overshadowed this issue at home. These 
two things, in my opinion, kept the people of Ohio 
from repudiating the bargain and sale of the politi- 
cians, whereby the Black Laws were repealed. 

" The Ohio Statesman, Feb. 22, 1849. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Social Position of Negro, 1802-1849. 

In this chapter we shall study the social position 
of the negroes in Ohio during the first half of the last 
century, or more truly, possibly, we shall study their 
lack of social position. We shall find that in the 
minds of white men generally negroes were creatures, 
not citizens, scarcely persons even, if we rightly in- 
terpret the laws made by the State Legislature in di- 
rect contradiction to the constitution, which secured 
certain rights to all persons, with no distinction what- 
soever. 1 Negroes were just enough like men to satisfy 
the persons of the State of Ohio that they should not 
be sold upon the auction block like other creatures of 
flesh and blood, as the horse and the ox. 

As many of the people of the State said at that 
time, the negroes were "an excresence on the body 
politic and the body social." They were creatures not 
welcomed into the State in any capacity. With the 
exception of about three hundred of their number, 
their descendants and a very few others, they had 
come into the State against her laws and were re- 
garded as intruders, uninvited and unwelcome. 

William Jay, an abolitionist lawyer of New York 
State and son of John Jay, the statesman and jurist, 
writing during the period which we are now reviewing 
and giving the status of the free negroes in the differ- 
ent States of the Union, said,"The laws of Ohio against 
the free blacks are peculiarly detestable. Not only 
are the blacks excluded in that State from the benefit 
of public schools, but with a refinement of cruelty 
unparalleled, they are doomed to idleness and poverty 
by a law which renders a white man who employs a 
colored one to labor for him one hour liable for his 

1 Constitution of Ohio, 1802, Art. VIII, Sec. 1, 7. I9> 25. 



EARLY SOCIAL STATUS 45 

support through life." 2 "Prejudice against the negro 
attains its rankest luxurience not in the rice-swamps 
of Georgia, nor the sugar fields of Louisiana, but upon 
the prairies of Ohio." 3 "Some remaining regard to 
decency and the opinion of the world has restrained 
the Legislatures of the free States, with one exception, 
from consigning these unhappy people to ignorance 
The exception must of course be Ohio." 4 These extracts 
are interesting, as giving the views of a person out- 
side the State looking on at the time that the condi- 
tions were in actual existence, and giving a compara- 
tive view of the situation in the different States. 

The laws against the free negroes that we have 
already considered 5 served as a frame-work upon 
which this prejudice was built or at least upon which 
it was clearly manifested. To a large extent their 
social status and legal status converged, each affect- 
ing deeply the other. Let us now consider some of the 
manifestations of this feeling against the negro. 

The laws of Ohio, up to 1848, failed absolutely to 
provide any schooling for the colored children, and 
the white people of the State failed almost as abso- 
lutely in the same direction. Here and there, very 
rarely, the negro child was helped to a few weeks' 
schooling in the course of a year. Sometimes this 
help was given by a few white friends who braved 
public ill-will thereby. More often it was the work of 
a few zealous negroes who raised enough money in 
some way to provide the schooling. In Cleveland, in 
the Puritan Western Reserve, I find the only instance 
where negro children were permitted to enter the 
public school beside white children without protest. 
Clark Waggoner, in his History of the City of Toledo 
and Lucas Count}/, says: 



3 Jay, Miscellaneous Writings on Slavery, 27. 
3 Jay, Miscellaneous Writings on Slavery, 373. 
*Jay, Miscellaneous Writings on Slavery, 385. 
"Chapter 11. 
6 School Report, 1875-76, p. 32. 



46 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

"At one time in the early history of the Toledo 
School System, the two races were associated in the 
schools. This, however, was but a condition of suf- 
ferance. All the time, the laws of the State maintained 
the right of any parent or guardian of a white scholar, 
by protest, to drive every colored child from the 
schools and into the streets ; and it was not long before 
such power was exercised, and the proscribed left 
without school privileges of any sort. After a long 
time the Board of Education established a school for 
the blacks in an old frame building, illy lighted, and 
poorly supplied with facilities, and in strong contrast 
with the superb provision made for the whites. The 
location was not central, and many colored children 
were by distance denied access to the school, even had 
the accommodations been sufficient for them. As late 
as 1867, with 200 to 300 colored children of school 
age in the city, not one in five was in this school." 7 
Toledo, be it noted, was the most northern city of 
Ohio. 

The inclination and ability of the colored people 
in raising funds for school purposes is pictured clear- 
ly by Alfred E. Lee, in his History of Columbus, Ohio : 
"Prior to 1836 the colored people maintained a school 
in the southern part of the city. In that year they 
organized a School Society with three trustees. In 
the fall of 1839 (three years later), they had sixty 
dollars in their treasury, and a subscribed building 
fund of two hundred and twenty-five dollars." 8 One 
can easily imagine from this the quantity and quality 
of schooling for the negroes of Columbus. 

In Cincinnati, where about one-third of the 
negroes of Ohio made their home during the first half 
of the last century, we see still another picture of 
negro schooling. Here we find little mission schools 

7 Clark Waggoner, History of the City of Toledo and Lucas 
County, 628. 

8 Alfred E. Lee, History of the City of Columbus, Ohio, I, 516. 



EARLY SOCIAL STATUS 47 

being established in 1834 by some of the students of 
Lane Theological Seminary, supported by a few women 
philanthropists. These students were severely cen- 
sured by citizens and by a large number of the faculty 
and officers of the institution. Finally they were 
directly forbidden by the school authorities to con- 
tinue in the work and, as a result, fifty-one students 
withdrew and went to Oberlin College in the Western 
Reserve district. They took along with them an es- 
pecially bright negro boy and desired his admission 
also to the school. This school, though well known 
for its anti-slavery feeling and teaching, had not ;is 
yet opened its doors to negro students. A great dis- 
cussion was now precipitated and was taken up by the 
newspapers of the whole State. In February, 1835, 
the trustees passed a resolution, carried only by the 
casting vote of the presiding officer, to open the doors 
of the institution to all students irrespective of color. 9 
For this and other acts sympathetic toward the negro, 
such a feeling was aroused throughout the State that 
a legislative investigation was conducted in the session 
of 1839-40 into the doings of the Oberlin Collegiate 
Institute, as it was then called. 10 While Oberlin was 
the only college in Ohio for many years that declared 
itself open to negroes, this concession amounted to 
little or nothing for the colored people, as it was s 
virtually impossible for any of them to get sufficient 
preparation for the college work even if they had the 
ambition. 

In the large cities, such as we have thus far con- 
sidered, we should naturally expect to find a few 
people who felt it their duty to help the negroes to a 
little education; but, if we look at the State broadly 
and as a whole, we shall find conditions even worse 
than those already pictured. According to a pamph- 
let entitled A Report on the Coin! it ion of Colored 

°J. H. Fairchild, Oberlin. Its Origin, Progress, and Results. 
10 Senate and House Journals, 1839-40. 



48 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

People in Ohio, read by A. D. Barber as an address 
before the Anti-Slavery Society at Massillon, Ohio, 
1840, many places throughout the State absolutely 
forbade schools for colored children to be established, 
even though supported by the negroes themselves, and 
in some places their school houses were burned to the 
ground ; in Jefferson, Scioto county, there were almost 
one hundred negro farmers, and yet they could not 
establish a negro school, owing to opposition which 
grew so bitter that it was considered bad policy for a 
white man to employ a negro or even converse with 
him; teaching a "nigger school" was considered con- 
temptible business, and any white man lowering him- 
self to such a degree was completely ostracized by his 
white neighbors. 11 

Prejudice of race was undoubtedly the strongest 
reason for this exclusion of blacks from the public 
schools; but the following, from an editorial in the 
Ohio State Journal of December 22, 1827, is interest- 
ing: 

"If we enlighten their minds by education, 
what a new world of misery do we open to their view. 
Knowledge would open their eyes to their present 
degraded state — their incapacity of enjoying the 
rights of citizenship, or of being received into the 
social interests of the whites as friends. They would 
be rendered uneasy with their condition, and, seeing 
no hopes of improvement, would harbor designs un- 
friendly to the peace and permanency of our institu- 
tions." 12 

Not only were they kept in darkness as regards 
knowledge, but in addition they were restricted in 
opportunity as regards religious and moral instruc- 
tion and stimulus. They did not have money to erect 
churches and provide ministers for themselves, and 

11 A Report on the Condition of Colored People in Ohio, 1840. — 
A. D. Barber. 

u Ohio State Journal, Dec. 22, 1827. 



EARLY SOCIAL STATUS 49 

yet they were not wanted in the white churches. If 
they presumed so much, they were either directly 
refused admission or made decidedly uncomfortable 
by being placed in special and undesirable places. In 
1840 the colored people in convention in Columbus 
publicly protested against the "negro pew." 13 Wil- 
liam Jay, writing in 1835, says: 

"Colored ministers are occasionally ordained in 
the different denominations, but they are kept at a 
distance by their white brethren in the ministry, and 
are very rarely permitted to enter their pulpits; and 
still more rarely to sit at their tables. The distinction 
of caste is not forgotten even in the celebration of the 
Lord's Supper, and seldom are colored disciples per- 
mitted to eat and drink of the memorials of the Re- 
deemer's passion till after every white communicant 
has been served." 14 

Being thus restricted in the enjoyment of mental 
and moral blessings and all influences that might gen- 
erate ambition and self-respect in them, it would be 
strange indeed to find many of them objecting to their 
condition and crying out for social equality. They 
seem to have been almost more than content to pick 
up the crumbs that fell from the white man's table, 
judging from the way in which they continued to come 
into the State, and to remain quiet and submissive 
to their superiors. I have been unable to find a single 
instance in which the colored people made anything 
approaching a forcible protest against the discrimin- 
ation that was constantly made against them. There 
was no resentful spirit shown then, as there is today, 
no determination on the negro's part to have "all his 
rights." 15 

"Minutes of the Convention of Colored People of Ohio; Con- 
vened at Columbus, Jan. 13-15, 1849. 

14 Jay, Miscellaneous Writings on Slavery, 387. 

15 Such is the attitude of many negroes who have been coming 
North in recent years. This, in my opinion, accounts for the fact 
that there is so much more mob violence at the present day than in 
the period now under survey. 



5 o THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

As facts and conditions presented later will show, 
the negroes did not presume to attend the white men's 
theatres or entertainments or go to the white men's 
hotels. They did not ride in the stage coaches on equal 
footing with the white passengers. On the steamboats 
they rode on deck and not in the cabins with the 
whites. They did not go to white men's homes for 
anything but to do their work. Their children did 
not play with the white children. In fact there was 
scarcely anything whatever in the way of communion 
between the whites and the blacks. They did not even 
work together in the lowest grades of labor. They 
were two peoples separate in practically all things. 
The negroes lived truly unto themselves, both as re- 
gards their place of dwelling in the city and as regards 
the relation of man to man. 

In the negroes' dependence upon the white people 
for the greater portion of their daily bread do we find 
the chief connecting tie between the two races. Of 
course some few — and they were very few — were small 
farmers and in a way independent, but far the greater 
number of them got what little money they needed by 
doing the lowest of menial work for the whites. It 
was out of the question for a negro to get a position as 
bookkeeper, clerk, or accountant of any kind, to enter 
a skilled trade, or in fact to do anything that would 
throw him in contact with the white race in a way the 
least suggestive of equality. 

In 1834 the Anti-slavery Society of Lane Sem- 
inary, near Cincinnati, had a committee investigate 
the condition of the free colored people in Cincinnati, 
and the following is a part of their report: 

"The wrongs suffered by those who remained be- 
hind in 1829, when so many of their people were forc- 
ibly driven out of Cincinnati, cannot well be imagined. 
The mechanical associations combined against them, 
and prejudice excluded them entirely from school 
privileges. 



EARLY SOCIAL STATUS 5I 

"A respectable master mechanic stated to us, a 
few days since, that in 1830 the President of the 
Mechanical Association was publicly tried by the 
Society for the crime of assisting a colored young man 
to learn a trade. Such was the feeling among the 
mechanics that no colored boy could learn a trade, or 
colored journeyman find employment. A young man 
of exceptional character and an excellent workman 
purchased his freedom and learned the cabinet making 
business in Kentucky. On coming to this city, he was 
refused work by every man to whom he applied. At 
last he found a shop carried on by an Englishman, 
who agreed to employ him — but on entering the shop, 
the workmen threw down their tools and declared that 
he should leave or they would. 'They would never 
work with a nigger.' The unfortunate youth was ac- 
cordingly dismissed. 

"In this extremity, having spent his last cent, he 
found a slave holder who gave him employment in an 
iron store as a common laborer. Here he remained 
two years, when the gentleman, finding he was a me- 
chanic, exerted his influence and procured work for 
him as a rough carpenter. This man, by dint of per- 
severance and industry, has now become a master 
workman, employing at times six or eight journey- 
men. But, he tells us, he has not yet received a single 
job of work from a native born citizen of a free State. 

"This oppression of the mechanics still continues. 
One of the boys of our school last summer sought in 
vain for a place in this city to learn a trade. In hopes 
of better success, his brother went with him to New 
Orleans, where he readily found a situation. Of mul- 
titudes of common laborers at the time alluded to 
above, who were immediately turned out of employ- 
ment, many have told us that they were compelled to 
resort to dishonorable occupations or starve. One 
fact — a clergyman told one of his laborers, who was 



52 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

also a member of his church, that he could employ him 
no longer, for the laws forbade it. The poor man went 
out and sought employment elsewhere to keep his 
family from starving, but he sought in vain and re- 
turned in despair to the minister to ask his advice. 
The only reply he received was, 'I cannot help you; 
you must go to Liberia.' 

"The combined oppression of public sentiment 
and law reduced the colored people to extreme misery. 
No colored man could be a drayman or porter without 
subjecting his employer to a heavy penalty, and few 
employers had the courage to risk its infliction. Many 
families, as we know, have for years been supported 
by the mothers or female part of the family. This they 
have done by going out at washing, or performing 
other drudgery which no one else could be procured 

to do." 16 

To assist in appreciating the gulf that lay be- 
tween the stations of the two races, as viewed by the 
white people of the time, the following incident will 
be helpful : In 1839 a petition for relief from certain 
legal disabilities was presented to the Legislature 
from some colored inhabitants of the State. It was 
moved to reject the reception of the petition, calling- 
it "an intruder into the House." The motion to reject 
the petition was lost by but four votes. The following 
day the House by a large majority decided "That the 
blacks and mulattoes, who may be residents within 
this State, have no constitutional right to present their 
petitions to the General Assembly for any purpose 
whatsoever, and that any reception of such petitions 
on the part of the General Assembly is a mere act of 
privilege or policy and not imposed by any expressed 
or implied power of the constitution." 17 

18 Proceedings of Ohio Anti-Slavery Convention, 1835, 19. 
"Journal of House of Representatives, 1839, Tan. 13, 14. 



EARLY SOCIAL STATUS 53 

Slavery in Ohio. 

The constitution of the Slate that was framed iii 
180- forbade slavery and also forbade the indenture of 
blacks and niulattoes for a longer period than oik.' 
year. 18 This provision was passed by a bare majority 
vote, as we have already seen, 10 which shows that 
public sentiment was by no means unanimous against 
slavery. This continued to be true for several decades, 
as evidenced by the fact that slavery, real slavery, was 
permitted in the State for many years, despite the 
constitutional provision against it. This fact, that 
Ohio was "a slave State" in a small way, will come as 
a surprise to most readers, but I believe there is 
material to prove this statement. 

The United States Census of 1830 states that 
there were six slaves in Ohio at that time. This is 
corroborated by the following clipping entitled "Slav- 
ery in Ohio" from the Ohio State Journal of March 
3, 1832, two years after the census above mentioned 
was taken : "It appears by a late report of the Secre- 
tary of State, made in obedience to a resolution of the 
House of Representatives, that there are actually six 
colored slaves in the State of Ohio, viz: two in the 
county of Montgomery, one in the county of Butler, 
one in the county of Clarke, and two in the county of 
Hamilton. Of these, three are females over twenty- 
four and under thirty-six years of age; and the others 
are over ten aud under twenty-four.""" 

If we had but this much as evidence, we might 
think, as others have, that those slaves were from the 
South, temporarily sojourning with their masters in 

18 Constitution of 1S02, Art. VIII., Sec. 2. 

"In Chapter i. 

-"Ohio State Journal, March 3, 1832. 

This was all that was said about the matter and, although T 
looked carefully over future issues for further mention of this 
strange condition of affairs, I could find none and was forced to 
conclude that the editor did not regard it as anything very unusual 
or interesting to his readers. 



54 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

the North, but this idea is not in accordance with the 
following evidence. 

In an old newspaper, The Supporter, published 
at Chillicothe, in the issue of December 8, 1813, we 
find this advertisement: 

FOR SALE, 

A NEGRO MAN, 

named George Panten, for ten years from this date. 
In the town of Columbia (Ohio) on the Ohio River, 
five and one-half miles from Cincinnati. 

(Signed) John Armstrong." 21 

This advertisement ran for seven consecutive 
weeks. 

In the southern counties of the State, there lived 
many men who owned plantations in the South and 
many negroes to work them as slaves. Getting ac- 
customed to that kind of service while in the South, 
it is very probable that many of them brought picked 
slaves north to act as their domestic servants. 

In addition to this farmers in the border counties 
along the Ohio river doubtless kept slaves whom 
they pretended to hire from their masters in Ken- 
tucky. 22 We know, from the general feeling of the 
whites in this part of the State toward the negroes, 
that there would be no objection made in any way to 
such practices. 

That the people of the State would quietly con- 
sent to slavery in their very midst is certainly suffi- 
cient to show that they were far from looking upon the 
negroes as their equals. They looked upon themselves 
as sinned against and not as the sinners. They would 
do nothing that would encourage the black men to 

21 The Supporter, of Chillicothe, Ohio, Dec. 8, 1813. 

22 W. H. Smith in his Political History of Slavery says there- 
were many such slaves in the southern counties. 



EARLY SOCIAL STATUS 55 

come among them, but on the other hand, would do 
almost anything to discourage them. 

Having now seen many of the manifestations of 
the white men's attitude toward the negroes, it will be 
interesting to see some expressions showing the view- 
point of the white men in their own words. As the 
main object of this work is to show the thoughts that 
have been entertained by the white people toward the 
blacks, I shall quote somewhat fully. In 1827 the 
Legislature appointed a special committee to investi- 
gate "the negro problem," and this committee, in 
December of that year, reported through its chairman, 
Mr. Walker, as follows : 

"The negroes are in many parts of the State a 
serious political and moral evil. Although they are 
nominally free, that freedom confers only the privi- 
lege of being more idle and vicious than slaves. This 
is obvious to every man who witnesses the effect in our 
towns and villages and turns his attention to the 
relative proportion of crime between the colored and 
white population of the State. The convicts in our 
pentitentiary with reference to the whole colored and 
white population of the State are as eight of the 
former to one of the latter. 23 

"Besides, the colored population has a tendency 
to depress and discourage the white laboring classes 
of the State, who are her source of wealth and peace. 
Destitute of the blessings of education and of moral 
and religious instruction, with no incentive to indus- 
try or the acquisition of an honorable reputation, and 
devoid of the intelligence and moral restraint neces- 
sary to qualify them for the privileges and immuni- 

23 According to the census of 1850, there were 362 whites and 
44 blacks in the State penitentiary. In every 10,000 whites 1.851 
were prisoners, and in every 10,000 blacks 17.405 were prisoners. 
This gives a ratio of more than 9 to I. And, at the present time, 
according to statistics in my possession, there are nearly seven col- 
ored people in prison in Ohio to one white person, considering their 
relative populations. 



5 6 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

ties of citizens, they form an excrescence on the body 
politic, which, if it cannot be removed, should not be 
permitted to increase by emigration." 24 

In an editorial in the Ohio State Journal, Decem- 
ber 22, 1827, we find the following : "The character 
of the negroes, as observed in all our villages general- 
ly, presents one uniform standard, that of being an 
idle, intemperate and dissolute race ; alike a burden on 
the resources of the State and to the energies of the 

laboring class of our citizens Wretched as their 

present political standing is in our State, even hope 
yields not to the prospects of the future. Their color 
draws an impassable barrier between them and the 
whites which they can never hope to surmount. 'Col- 
or,' remarks the U. 8. Review, mas become the signal 
distinction, by the mere habit of connecting the idea 
of slave with that of a dark skin, — nor can it be other- 
wise while the principles of association hold their 
place among the first elements of the human mind.' 
The bondsmen of ancient Greece and Koine were of 
the same color with their masters. When affection or 
interest loosed their chains, they were received into 
the bosom of the commonwealth and became entitled 
to all the privileges of citizens. Alliances were not 
disgraceful with the manumitted bondsman. But far 
different is the situation of the manumitted blacks in 
this country. To use the appropriate words of the 
late Robert G. Harper, 'Be their industry ever so 
great, or their conduct ever so correct, whatever prop- 
erty they may have acquired, or whatever respect we 
may feel for their characters, we never will consent 
to see the two races placed on a footing of perfect 
equality with each other, to see the free blacks or their 
descendants visit in our homes, form part of our so- 
cial acquaintances, marry into our families, or partic- 
ipate in public honors or employments." 25 

21 Ohio State Journal Dec. 19, 1827. 
25 Ohio State Journal, Dec. 22, 1827. 



EARLY SOCIAL STATUS 57 

In 1832 the status of the negroes was again the 
subject of investigation by the Legislature. The com- 
mittee appointed to inquire into the subject reported 
through its chairman, Mr. Worthington, of Ross coun- 
ty, in part as follows: "That, after a careful investi- 
gation of the matter referred to them they view the 
present situation and future prospects of Ohio, in re- 
gard to this class of people, as one of peculiar and 
painful interest, whether as relating to the moral 
character, or political prosperity of her citizens. The 
existence in any community of a people forming a 
distinct and degraded caste, who are forever excluded 
by the fiat of society and the laws of the land from all 
hopes of equality in social intercourse and political 
privileges, must from the nature of things be fraught 
with unmixed evil, and this evil is especially felt 
where they are congregated in considerable numbers 
in the larger towns. White men will not degrade 
themselves in society by adopting the employment of, 
and coming into competition with the blacks, a peo- 
ple of a degraded and dependent condition and of dis- 
solute conduct, a people upon whom society has affix- 
ed the brand of infamy from their birth ; with whom 
it is considered disgraceful for the meanest white man 
to associate. 

"Did this committee believe it possible by acts of 
legislation to remove this blot from the body politic, 
by so elevating the social and moral condition of the 
blacks in Ohio that they would be received into soci- 
ety on terms of equality and would by common con- 
sent be admitted to a participation in political priv- 
ileges — were such a thing possible, even after a lapse 
of time and by a pecuniary sacrifice — most gladly 
Avould they recommend such measures as would sub- 
serve the cause of humanity by producing such a re- 
sult. 

"But they appeal to the experience of every man 
in this community to bear them out in the assertion 



5 8 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

that such an amalgamation is repudiated at once by 
the strong and unconquerable feeling of the society in 
which we live. Whether this feeling be right or 
wrong, reasonable or unreasonable, it is not the prov- 
ince of this committee to inquire. That is a question 
for the philosopher and metaphysician. 

"For the purposes of legislation, it is sufficient 
to know that the blacks in Ohio must always exist as 
a separate and degraded race; that when the leopard 
shall change his spots and the Ethiopian his skin, 
then, but not till then, may we expect that the de- 
scendents of Africans will be admitted into society on 
terms of social and political equality." 26 

Having now gotten the views of two different 
committees in two Legislatures five years apart, 
and also an editorial from one of the lead- 
ing newspapers of the State, we will now turn 
to the words of a judge on the bench of the 
Supreme Court of the State. In 1842, in the case of 
Edwill Thacker vs. John Hawk et al. the Supreme 
Court decided by a bare majority vote that all persons 
less than half negro in blood had the right of electors 
in Ohio. Justice N. C. Keed of Cincinnati, dissented 
from the view of the majority in the following words : 

"This exclusion of persons of color, or of any de- 
gree of colored blood from all political rights is not 
founded upon a mere naked prejudice, but upon nat- 
ural differences. The two races are placed as wide 
apart by the hand of nature as white from black; and 
to break down the barriers fixed, as it were, by the 
Creator himself, in a political and social amalgama- 
tion shocks us as something unnatural and wrong. 
It strikes us as a violation of the laws of nature. It 
would be productive of no good. It would degrade 
the white, if it could be accomplished, without elevat- 
ing (lie black. Indeed, if we gather lessons of wisdom 
from the history of mankind — walk by the light of our 

'" Ohio State Journal, Feb. I, 1832. 



EARLY SOCIAL STATUS 59 

experience, or consult the principles of human nature, 
we shall be convinced that the two races never can 
live together upon terms of equality and harmony. 
The distinctions are too marked to be overcome by I he 
power of political action, and the folly of the attempt 
will probably be only equaled by the fatal consequen- 
ces of the result. In view of these conclusions and in 
this feeling, our constitution was formed, and such 
views and feelings have always directed the policy of 
the State. The practical construction which we have 
given our constitution for a period of more than forty 
years lias been to exclude all persons, of all degrees 
of black or negro blood from the exercise or enjoy- 
ment of all political rights. 

"The policy of the State always has been to dis- 
courage the immigration and settlement of persons of 
color among us. The decision of this Court conferring 
the political rights upon all less than half black, is an 
inducement for such to immigrate to the State and re- 
main here. It violates the spirit of the constitution, 
because in principle I see no difference in allowing a 
mulatto to vote, and a person a little less than mulat- 
to, or a full black; for the taint of black blood extends 
to them all, and this is the reason of their exclusion." 27 

From the evidence here presented we are forced 
to conclude that the negroes of Ohio, during the first 
half of the nineteenth century, were in a miserable 
condition, economically, morally and menially. This 
naturally fixed to a great extent their status in the 
life of the State, but we everywhere see the one other 
element, race prejudice, constantly entering in to col- 
or the view (hat the white man took of the black man. 
To him "hope yielded not to the future" for the color 
line was everywhere and was everlasting, forming an 
impassable barrier between the two races, which the 
black man could never hope to surmount. 

17 Thacker vs. Hawk et al.—Xl Ohio Reports, 376. 



CHAPTER V. 

Feeling Toward the Negro as Expressed in the 
Constitutional Convention, 1850-1851. 

Mr. Worthington, a delegate from Chillicothe, 
speaking in the constitutional convention February 
17, 1851, made the following statement : "The gentle- 
man says that at the time of the Revolution there 
was less prejudice against the black race than there is 
at present. That is undoubtedly true; and it is also 
true that the prejudice, if you will so call it, has in- 
creased at each successive period of time, and the ir- 
resistible inference from such a state of facts is, that 
the longer the two races occupy the same soil, the 
greater will be their repulsion and the stronger the 
prejudice." 1 This statement was probably made off- 
hand, and very probably fell upon many deaf ears, 
just as it would today; but such a statement is surely 
worthy of an investigation. This investigation I am 
now making. I have stated the facts as I have found 
them, covering fifty years before this utterance was 
made in 1851, and I shall give the facts for the six de- 
cades intervening between then and now, and the read- 
er may then determine for himself the amount of truth 
there was in the inference that the speaker drew, 
or in his prophecy that "the longer the two races oc- 
cupy the same soil, the greater will be their repulsion 
and the stronger the prejudice." 

The constitutional convention of 1802 lasted less 
than thirty days, and its proceedings were recorded in 
less than that number of pages and, consequently, we 
know little of its inner workings. But the convention 
of 1850-51 lasted almost a year, and its proceedings 
are published in two volumes of about one thousand 
pages each. The result is that we have in these volum- 
inous debates a storehouse of facts pertaining to the 

1 Convention Debates, 1850-51, II, 639. 



CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, 1850-1851 61 

status of the negro in the State, as this question was 
prominent in the deliberations of the convention from 
the first to the last. 

Petitions came in to the convention from every 
part of the State, and these represented every shade 
of opinion on the subject. I find that there were twen- 
ty-nine petitions, from ten different counties, with a 
total list of over fifteen hundred names, asking for 
equal rights, political and legal, for the negro: 2 there 
were three petitions, from three counties, with two 
hundred names, asking that the negro be permitted to 
vote: 3 on the oilier hand, three petitions, from three 
counties, with two hundred and forty-nine names, ask- 
ing that the negro be denied the privilege of voting; 4 
eight petitions from seven different counties, with 013 
names, asking that the negro be prohibited from com- 
ing into the State; 5 five petitions from six counties, 
with five hundred and twenty-one names, asking that 
the negroes then living in Ohio be in one way or an- 
other removed from the State. 6 

The equal rights petitioners made by far the best 
showing in the number of petitioners and signers, but 
accomplished no results; and the petitions were prob- 
ably the work of a few enthusiasts. \ am led to this 
conclusion from the fact that the same name headed 
two of the petitions from one county. 7 and another 
name headed two petitions from a second county, 8 and 
I am further convinced by the fact that the represen- 
tatives from Stark and Warren counties, from which 
respectively came eleven and four of the petitions out 
of a total of twenty-nine, voted against the negro at 

2 Debates, I, 31, 56, 59, 75, 107, 108, 191, 236, 313, 337, 354, 726. 
II. 5, 34, 192, 232. 

'■' Debates, I, 298, 313, 474- 

4 Debates, I, 236, 374, 458. 

5 Debates, II, 5, 140, 159, 191, 339, 458. 
Debates, I, 28, 458, 459. II, 191. 
'Debates, I, 354- 

3 Debates, I, 236. 



62 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

almost every opportunity. 9 Portage county furnished 
seven of the petitions, and her delegate voted for the 
negro. 9 Muskingum, Clark, Ashland, Miami and 
Hamilton counties furnished one petition each, and in 
every case their delegates voted against the equal 
rights petitioned for. 10 

Mr. Smith, of Warren county, stated to the con- 
vention that the four petitions from his county rep- 
resented the sentiments of a very small portion of his 
district. 11 Mr. Archbold, of Monroe county, called 
these petitions "effusions of folly and fanaticism." 12 

William Sawyer, delegate from Auglaize, one of 
the northern counties, in unequivocal terms opposed 
the reception of equal rights petitions, saying that he 
felt constrained by a sense of duty to his constituents 
to say, here and now, he would not sit still and permit 
even his fellow citizens to petition that negroes should 
be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of 
white men without raising his voice against it. The 
petition was one that they had no right to consider; 
to him it was revolting and an insult to the freemen of 
Ohio. He held that there were some things that even 
a white man had no right to petition for. 13 Later, 
when the subject of receiving the same kind of peti- 
tion again come up and its sponsor said that it was 
couched in respectful language and ought therefore 
to be received, Mr. Mitchell, of Knox county, said that 
he doubted very seriously if petitions aiming to class 
the negroes of the State, with reference to their rights 
and interests, side by side with the wives and daugh- 
ters of the whites, could be made in respectful lan- 
guage. 14 

When the matter of receiving petitions from col- 

Debates, II, 19, 350, 554. 

10 Debates, II, 19, 350, 554- 
"Debates, II, 57. 

13 Debates, I, 76. 

13 Debates, I, 56, 107. 

11 Debates, I, 76. 



CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, 1850-1851 63 

ored people themselves caine up, there was the strong- 
est opposition manifested by many members. Mr. 
Holmes, of Hamilton county, said, "I am unwilling to 
receive petitions from the colored portion of our pop- 
ulation, or even seem to entertain any disposition to 
receive them." 14 Mr. Townsend, of Lorain county, 
presented a petition for equal rights signed by an edu- 
cated constituent, who happened to have some negro 
blood in his veins but was nearer white than black. 
Mr. Sawyer immediately rose and said that he object- 
ed to this petition more especially than any other. 15 
Mr. Eobertson, of Fairfield county, stated "that the 
Supreme Court had declared the petitioner a citizen; 
he did not believe they were right in so doing. He 
hoped there would be a clause in the new constitution 
against allowing such persons to become citizens." 18 
.Mr. Loudon, of Brown county, "believed it was the 
opinion of his constituents that very few blacks in 
Ohio had the right to come here and ask anything at 
our hands; they were tresspassers, in other words, 
on the limits of this State." 17 All of this oppostition 
to receiving petitions in behalf of, and from, colored 
inhabitants was overcome and all petitions were ac- 
cepted, there being many anti-negro members who 
stood boldly for right of petition as an American birth- 
right that was not to be tampered with. 

The three petitions praying the convention to 
give the negro the ballot met with the same treatment 
as those asking for equal rights, but the three that 
asked for a denial of the ballot got what they wanted, 
as it was the almost unanimous wish of the State and 
of the convention. The eight petitions against negro 
immigration and the five for extradition were wel- 
comed by a large number of the members of the con- 
vention, but their object was not accomplished. Pro- 

1S Debates, I, 458. 
14 Debates, I, 459. 
"Debates, I, 459. 



64 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

posals for State aid to colonization were sometimes 
included in these last named petitions. Daniel Drake, 
of Scioto county, a prominent man and well known 
for his contributions to the early history of Ohio, 
petitioned the convention to stop the immigration of 
negroes and to enact laws favoring African coloniza- 
tion. 18 Mr. Loudon, of Brown county, in speaking of 
the views of his people on the subject of extradition, 
said, "There is a feeling in the section of the country 
that I come from upon this one particular subject of 
extradition that outweighs perhaps all other feelings 
with regard to the doing of this Ohio convention. A 
majority of the people I represent, without regard, I 
may say, to whether they are of the Democratic party 
or of the Whig party, believe with the fathers of this 
State that this should be a State for the white man 
and the white man only." 19 

The following petition, signed by one-hundred 
and thirty-five people of Butler county and 
presented to the convention by their delegate, 
Mr. King, is very interesting and instructive as to the 
general tenor of the petitions of like kind : 

"To the convention, called to change the consti- 
tution of Ohio : 

"Gentlemen : — The undersigned, citizens of But- 
ler county, Ohio, respectfully petition your honorable 
body, and pray, that provision be made, in the consti- 
tution that you are now framing, for the removal of 
all persons of negro, or part negro blood, from the 
State of Ohio. And also that such other and further 
provision may be made, by preventing the influx and 
immigration of negroes, as will eventually restore to 
the State of Ohio, a population of free white people, 
and none other. 

"A separation we regard as alike advantageous 
to both races; and therefore, without wishing to in- 



M Debates, II, 159. 
19 Debates, I, 28. 



CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, 1850-1851 65 

jure the negroes, Ave ask that they be removed. But, 
as the power of removal is an important one, we wish 
it exercised with great prudence and humanity. No 
negro should be deprived of his property, without re- 
ceiving a compensation in money, and none should be 
removed until provision is made for them in another 
country. But, whatever may be the consequence to 
the negroes, the happiness and welfare of the white 
race, both as to the present and future generations, 
requires the removal, and therefore it should be 
done." 20 

These petitions and comments made thereon by 
the members of the convention reveal bitter anti-ne- 
gro sentiments throughout the State. The strongest 
prejudice was shown to be in the southern counties 
of the State, as every petition against the negro had 
its origin in that half of the State, if we except this 
interesting little touch, coining from the otherwise 
"unbroken North:" Mr. Humphreyville presented a 
petition from Medina county, signed by thirty-three 
citizens asking for equal rights for the negro, and at 
the bottom of the same paper were the signatures of 
"seven citizens of the same township, stating that they 
cannot conscientiously subscribe to the above petition, 
because it is not true democracy." 21 

The intense prejudice of the southern counties 
was due, as has been intimated before, to the fact that 
a large number of the population was from the South 
and, from birth and education, or from social and bus- 
iness relations, were heartily in sympathy with their 
old home interests and institutions and naturally 
cherished a strong antipathy for the negroes. Anoth- 
er reason for the southern counties feeling more of this 
prejudice than the northern counties was that they 
had many times the number of negroes among then) 

20 Debates, II, 191. 

21 Debates, I, 191. 



66 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

that the northern ones had, came more intimately in- 
to contact with them and saw them at their worst. 
These negroes eked out a miserable existence working 
at odd jobs and stayed close by the Ohio river, as there 
was always a demand for unskilled labor there in the 
loading and unloading of boats. 22 This sort of work 
was much more congenial to them than the more con- 
tinuous, if not more irksome, labor of farming. The 
long intervals between tasks or "jobs" gave them am- 
ple opportunity to stretch themselves on some plank, 
bask in the sun and dream of the sweet liberty they 
enjoyed, or to get together in groups and sing their 
own peculiar songs. They worked just enough to keep 
body and soul together and, as a consequence, they 
were generally miserably poor, ignorant, and too often 
vicious. 

The following description in the Cincinnati Ga- 
zette in 1835 of a large settlement known as the 
"Camps" in Brown county, where about one thousand 
negroes had settled in 1820, gives us a picture of them 
that must resemble in many ways the picture that was 
in the minds of the people of the southern counties, 
when they spoke so bitterly of the idea of classing 
them as their equals: 

"They are so extremely lazy and stupid that the 
neighboring farmers will not employ them to any ex- 
tent. They do not raise produce enough on their own 
lands to keep their families, much less do they have 
a surplus to sell abroad. They pass most of their time 
in little smoking cabins, too listless to even fiddle and 
dance. One may pass through the 'negro camps,' pass- 
ing a dozen straggling cabins with smoke issuing out 
of the ends of them, without seeing a soul either at 
work or play. The fear of starvation makes them 
work the least possible quantity, while they are a great 

22 They have clung to that kind of work to this day in that local- 
it}', for it has a fascination for them which they cannot resist. 



CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, 1850-1851 67 

deal too lazy to play. There are not more than two 
or three families out of the whole who have been ben- 
efitted by the change from slavery to freedom." 23 

The people of the northern part of the State, un- 
like the people of the southern part, saw few such pic- 
tures, and so their humanity was put to a much light- 
er test. Besides, the population here was largely from 
the Eastern States. They had come to Ohio with few 
prejudices against the negro, as they had generally no 
life-long associations with him and little commercial 
dealing. The few negroes that moved up among them 
were necessarily more ambitious and capable than 
their brothers or else they would have remained be- 
hind along with the rest, pursuing the path of least 
resistance. They settled often upon small farms and 
in the small towns and generally did much better for 
themselves than they possibly could have done in the 
lower part of the State. 

The following description of the negroes of Cleve- 
land, as given by Mr. Andrews of that city, is at the op- 
posite extreme from the picture already presented of 
the negroes in the southern part of the State ;"We have 
about three hundred negroes in the city of Cleveland, 
and I venture to say that there is not a man among 
them who is not qualified to vote. As long ago as 1845, 
twenty colored people in that city had property which 
was estimated at thirty-six thousand dollars. They 
have various organizations for their improvement, and 
their children are educated in onr common schools 
with the white children. The truth is that, if we ap- 
ply to them the same measure of qualification that we 
do to the whites, they are as well qualified to exercise 
the righl of suffrage as thousands of white voters in 
this or any other State." 24 

So the circumstances under which the northern 

M Cincinnati Gazette, copied into NUes' Register of October 3, 
1835, XLIX, 76. 

21 Debates, II, 636. 



68 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

Ohio white man formed his opinion of the black man 
were very unlike those of his brother in the southern 
part of the State; and the result was that he felt much 
less prejudice. The two sections could not understand 
one another's point of view, and there came about as 
a result a division of the State in regard to the negro 
into a "North" and a "South," much resembling the 
division of the United States that was taking place at 
about this same time and over the same question. And 
one thing most conducive to this misunderstanding, 
both in State and Nation, was lack of communication 
between the two sections. Mr. Andrews, of Cleveland, 
speaking to the convention February 17, 1851, said: 

"The Telegraph of this morning brings us the in- 
telligence that contains the promise of good things to 
come. At this moment, sir, while I am speaking, the 
first locomotive is on its way from Columbus to Cleve- 
land, proclaiming that the space between the northern 
and the southern boundary of the State is annihilated 
and that the Ohio river and Lake Erie are side by 
side. I hope, sir, that this great event will be the 
harbinger of a better state of feeling, that it will deep- 
en and multiply the channels of intercourse between 
the different sections of the State, that it will correct 
misapprehension and remove prejudice on all sides 
and be the means of making us in heart, as we now are 
in name, one people." 25 

Let us develop further the difference in prejudice 
in the two sections of the State, keeping in mind the 
difference in the number of blacks in the two sections, 
and we shall come to what, in my opinion, is the most 
tangible explanation of this peculiar feeling of race- 
prejudice. Mr. Green, of Eoss county, which is in the 
southern portion of the State, speaking upon the mat- 
ter of the State paying for the transportation of the 
negroes to Africa, said: 

"Debates, II, 637. 



CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, 1850-1851 69 

"The presence of the blacks among us is a nui- 
sance, especially in the southern portion of the State; 
and the people of this portion of the State would sub- 
mit to no tax more cheerfully than that by which they 
might get rid of this nuisance. There is no division 
of sentiment amongst us in regard to this matter. Gen 
1 Lemen from the northern part of the State could noi 
by reason of their prejudices understand why this is 
so. But, if they were to come down and live amongst 
us, they would get some information upon the subject. 
They would learn this fact, that we are opposed to el- 
evating the blacks to the same rank with ourselves; 
but that, while we consider them an inferior class of 
beings, we treat them with the same kindness and 
faithfulness which we extend to all others in the same 
condition of life; we feed them well, and we do not 
overtask them But, I repeat, they are a nui- 
sance among us. What do the people of the northern 
counties know of the practical workings of the colored 
people among us? They know nothing of the charac- 
ter of this class of people; they are totally unacquaint- 
ed with them. They get up here and in the name of 
humanity and universal right endeavor to impress the 
public mind with the necessity of throwing wide open 
our doors to the admission of this people among us: — 
when, at the same time, they ought to know perfectly 
that we at the South must suffer the evil and not 
they." 28 Mr. Sawyer, of Auglaze county in the north- 
western pari of the State, but nevertheless probably 
the most bitter anti-negro man in the convention, said, 
"If you will look at the statistics furnished by the re- 
cent census, you will find that in those counties of this 
State, where abolitionism or free-soilism predominates 
there are the fewest negroes. It is in the southern 
counties, bordering on Kentucky, where then 1 is the 
largest proportion of negroes and mulattoes; and 
those counties are the least friendly to them. Either 

:o Debates, II, 337, 338. 



7 o THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

the negroes do not know their friends in the north or 
else they will not go to them." 27 

Mr. Worthington, of Ross county, said, "To the 
part of the State which he had the honor to represent, 
the negro is a serious practical question and a serious 
grievance, and we are better acquainted with the con- 
dition of the colored population of the State than a 
man from the north possibly can be. The prejudice 
against the negro is worse than it ever has been, and 
it is idle to suppose that this sentiment will ever de- 
crease as long as the two races remain together." 28 

We shall now have some expressions from pro-ne- 
gro territory, the very center of which was the West- 
ern Reserve, in the northeastern part of the State. 
Mr. Townsend, of Lorain county, Western Reserve, 
one of the two men who secured the repeal of the Black 
Laws in 1849, said : 

"We have some negroes among us, there being 
about one hundred in the village where I live. We 
have little prejudice against them, their children going 
to the same schools as the white children. Our sym- 
pathy for them does not spring from our ignorance of 
them, but from the conviction that they are human 
beings and therefore entitled to all the rights and 
privileges and sympathies due to humanity, and from 
die conviction that they, equally with other men, are 
susceptible of intellectual and moral elevation." 20 Mr. 
Taylor, of Erie county, Western Reserve, in replying 
to the words of Mr. Green, of Ross county, quoted 
above, said, "In respect to the allusion to the compar- 
ative extent of the black population in the northern 
and southern portions of the State, it might be that all 
the counties of the Western Reserve did not contain 
as many colored people as the single county of Ross. 30 

"Debates, II, 12. 

28 Debates, II, 639. 

29 Debates, II, 12. 

30 According to the census of 1850, the eleven counties of the 
Reserve had 1,231 negroes in them, while Ross county alone had 
1,906. 



CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, 1850-1851 ?I 

And why this was so he could not tell, unless it might 
be explained by the familiar adage, 'Birds of a feather 
flock together.' — But some of us have been alluded to 
as the peculiar friends of the negro. A Ye are not the 
peculiar friends of that, or any other portion of the 
population. We stand upon an entirely different ba- 
sis, that of equal rights — without being the peculiar 
friends of any class in particular. We disclaim the 
term 'peculiar.' We ask no peculiar favors for the 
colored race; we are only opposed to peculiar meas- 
ures against them. From the expressions heard on 
this floor, we are about to retrograde in our treatment 
of the colored population of the State by commencing 
a system of persecution worse than that which we al- 
ready have. Where will it end? I beg the gentlemen to 
be consistent in this regard — let them proclaim their 
real designs — if the black man is to be driven across 
our borders at the point of the bavonet, let them say 
so." 31 

Mr. Andrews, of Cleveland, said: "We all know 
well that there is a great diversity of opinion among 
the people of the State, respecting every measure af- 
fecting the people of color, and such a sensitiveness 
on the subject as I had heretofore no conception of. 
Every movement and even every throb of sympathy in 
their behalf seems to be regarded by many as a direct 
or indirect attack on slavery. Sir, they don't under- 
stand us at all. Undoubtedly the people of northern 
Ohio feel a deep interest in the condition of the colored 
race, but they will leave slavery to the exclusive con- 
trol of the Southern States. The conditions of colored 
people at home is widely different, and yon may rest 
assured that in every enterprise that looks to their 
elevation and advancement the people of the Reserve 
will head the column and consider the place where 
they can do them the most good as the post of duly. 
Yon now propose to drive out of the State ;ill colored 

31 Debates, II, 338, 601, 12. 



7 2 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

people. I have no desire to perpetuate in our consti- 
tution the sympathies of one portion of our people or 
the prejudices of another. But, sir, it is well under- 
stood that the people of the northern part of the State 
are utterly opposed to any such provision and, if you 
iusert it, you may depend on it that they will vote 
against the constitution as one man. I do not know 
indeed but that we may be outnumbered by the votes 
of other parts of the State and compelled to submit 
to it for a time; but you may be assured that, with 
this provision in it, your new constitution, instead of 
being an instrument of peace, will be an exhaustless 
fountain of strife and contention, and that the people 
of the north, whose feelings are thus outraged, will not 
'give sleep to their eyes nor slumber to their eyelids' 
until they have stricken out this obnoxious feature." 32 
The negro population of the different counties of 
the State, according to the census of 1850, will be 
found graphically portrayed in Map No. 4. From a 
study of this, we shall find among other things that 
in the northern half of the State, taking in fortj'-four 
counties, there were 3,836 negroes, while the southern 
half had a population of 21,443. Now, if we consider 
Map No. 5 in connection with Map No. 4, we shall flud 
that the north — and indeed we can almost limit it to 
the Western Reserve district — with its sparse negro 
population gave almost all the pro-negro votes that 
were given in the convention; that Hamilton county 
in the southwestern corner of the State had a negro 
population of 3,G00, practically as large as the whole 
northern half of the State, and it registered every one 
of its votes against the negro; that Franklin and Ross, 
two other southern counties, together had 3,513 ne- 
groes and they voted solidly against the negro; that 
Warren and Brown together, and Clinton and High- 
land together in the southwestern corner, had larger 
negro populations than all the eleven counties of 

31 Debates, II, 604, 636. 



CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, 1850-1851 73 

the Western Reserve, in the extreme northeastern cor- 
ner of the State, and without exception they voted 
against the colored man ; that exactly the same thing- 
may be said for Belmont and Muskingum counties in 
the southeastern part of the State; and finally, taking 
a general survey, we shall find that wherever the ne- 
groes are comparatively numerous there the anti-ne- 
gro votes are recorded. Or, in other words, and this 
is the point that I have been working up to, the greater 
the negro population, the greater the white man's 
prejudice. 33 

Having seen the feeling of the convention toward 
receiving petitions from, and in behalf of, the negroes, 
and having noted from what portion, and from how 
large a portion of the State this feeling emanated, one 
may easily imagine the general way in which the con- 
vention handled the different proposals pertaining to 
the status of the colored man. There were three main 
proposals which brought out, by speeches and by votes, 
the sentiment of the State as a whole on this great 
question. They were (1) to enroll the negro in the 
militia, (2) to give him the right of suffrage, and (3) 
to permit him to enter the public schools along with 
the whites. 34 We shall consider these propositions in 
order, taking up first the provision as to the militia. 

3:1 And the same thing is true today, at least for the State of 
Ohio, and I regard this fact as one of the most important results of 
this investigation. I shall develop it more fully in the last chapter. 
I make the statement, not only from a study of the past, but from 
a thorough investigation of the subject at the present time. The 
prejudice is found to be the greatest wherever the negroes have 
settled in large numbers. The best explanation that I have been 
able to find for this fact is this: the greater the number of colored 
people, the greater is the likelihood that there will be some of them 
who will do things that will arouse the white man's anger. The 
white man instead of visiting his wrath upon the individual who 
arouses it, as he would do if the culprit were a white man, nurses 
a part of it against the whole negro race. His white brother sym- 
pathizes with him, and the negro race bears the blame. 

"Map No. 5 will picture the votes on these three propositions 
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7 6 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

The committee on the State militia presented as 
the first section of its report "That all white male in- 
habitants shall be enrolled in the militia." 35 Mr. 

Townsend, the champion of negro rights, moved to 
strike out the word 'white.' Ordinarily, this sort of 
motion would have precipitated almost unending dis- 
cussions, but, for some unknown reason, the question 
was not argued at all, unless we consider the following 
as argument : — "Mr. would not object to the per- 
formance of military duty by the colored people of the 
State, nor that they should be mustered and drilled. 
He would suggest, however, that the musters be con- 
trived to take place in cold weather. The reason was 
obvious." 30 This hint and its setting plainly tell us 
that the negro was 'persona non grata' to the white 
men, who went into the militia generally for social 
purposes. When the motion to strike out the word 
'white' was put, it was lost by a vote of 22 to 62. 3T Pre- 
viously, the negro had been debarred from the militia 
by legislative statute, 38 but now his enemies advance 
one step further and incorporate the disability in the 
fundamental law of the State, which the convention of 
1802 did not do. 

We have noticed already the struggle over re- 
ceiving into the convention the negro petitions, but 
tli is was not comparable with that waged over the pro- 
posal to give the negro the ballot. 

The committee on the elective franchise brought 
in their report December 4. The clause which they 
had drafted conferred the privilege of voting only on 
'white male citizens.' It was moved immediately by 
.Mr. Woodbury of Ashtabula county to strike out the 
word 'white,' for the reason that negroes were made 
amenable to the laws, and it was no more than right 

''Debates, II, 346. 
3 ° Debates, I, 452. 

37 Debates, II, 350, Dec. 30. 

38 Laws of Ohio, 2. (Passed Dec. 30, 1803.) 



CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, 1850-1851 77 

that they should help make them. 39 The matter was not 
discussed further at this time but, about two months 
later, it was again brought up and Mr. Townsend, who 
was a member of the committee on the electoral priv- 
ilege, stated that he was strongly opposed to the pres- 
ence of the word 'white,' and sustained his objection 
on the ground that such limitation was unjust, anti- 
democratic, impolitic and ambiguous."' The speaker 
made the mistake of demanding the franchise for the 
negro as a right, instead of asking for it as a privilege. 
He claimed that in this denial of the right lay great in- 
justice. He said it was anti-democratic, because it did 
not conform to any definition of democracy that he 
had ever heard of: among others to that of Jefferson, 
who said that democracy consisted in doing "equal and 
exact justice to all men." It was impolitic, as the ne- 
gro needed the ballot as an inducement to strive to 
make something of himself and "if, on the other hand, 
we make it impossible for any class to rise, if we con- 
sign them to ignorance and want and degradation, we 
ought to consider ourselves responsible for whatever 
invasion of our rights may be the consequence. Expe- 
rience has taught us that ignorance is one of the most 
fruitful sources of crime, and it has therefore been 
found to be good policy to secure the education of the 
whole people of this State as a means of preventing 
crime. But, besides giving them education, we must 
give them the full benefit of the powerful stimulus of 
hope and ambition. We must give them the ballot 
on the grounds of expediency. 

"I object to the word 'white' being inserted in this 
clause, because it is ambiguous. Some persons regard- 
ed as negroes by others are whiter than many persons 
absolutely known to be of pure Caucasian blood 

"Humanity does not consist in the color of the 
hair, or eyes, or skin, or where a person may have been 

39 Debates, II, 8. 
ta Debates, II, 550. 



78 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

born, or what his origin or capacity — these peculiari- 
ties may be changed indefinitely, but a man is a man 
for all that. 

"One word more. It has been said of colored per- 
sons repeatedly, 'This is not their country.' The Cau- 
casian is not the aboriginal race here any more than 
the negro. Their right here has the same foundation 
as our own and is based on the fact that every human 
being has a right to the pursuit of his happiness and 
to the enjoyment of all his God-given rights wherever 
he pleases, and no government, here or elsewhere, has 
a right to say who shall or shall not live in any part of 
the wide world. There is but one particular in which 
we have a better right than they — that is 'the right of 
the strongest,' a right always recognized, I believe, 
among robbers but not usually urged among honest 
men. " 

I have quoted at some length from this speech 
as it embraces every argument advanced in favor of 
giving the negroes suffrage. The argument for en- 
franchisement on the ground that the term 'white 1 was 
ambiguous, was emphasized by several speakers. They 
said that there were many among the colored people 
of Ohio who were by race and descent negroes, but who 
in complexion were as fair as their white neighbors, 
and that judges of elections had often had great dif- 
ficulty in deciding whether the applicant was actually 
a white man, and thus a legal voter. Through their 
representative, Mr. Hunter, twenty citizens of Ashta- 
bula county sent a petition to the convention, asking 
that some uniform method might be determined upon 
to assist these judges. Mr. Hunter said, "The only 
object of the petition was to protest against the ridicu- 
lousness of such a variable, uncertain and whimsical 
method ;is was now in use for determining the qualifi- 
cations necessary to secure the elective franchise."" 

41 Debates, II, 551-552. 
"Debates, II, 614. 



CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, 1850-185 1 79 

The arguments of the other side will be found in 
the following quotations: 

Mr. Brown, of Athens county, in the southeastern 
pari of the State, said, "The negroes arc considered a 
degraded race among us, for what reason it is not my 
purpose to inquire; the opinion obtains however, and 
we cannot by force of public authority bring them on 
an equality with the white race. Until there is an en- 
tire social revolution in the intercourse between the 
two races, — until the time shall come when the black 
man can go to your house as a suitor for your daugh- 
ter, and ask and obtain her in marriage, and until yon 
can welcome the issue of that marriage, and receive 
with pride your little grandson, 'William Cuffy,' or 
some such name that would follow, and when a man 
can introduce them to his friends, and they will be re- 
ceived into the society of the white race,— until then 
the two races are separate and distinct. When this 
revolution has taken place in the intercourse between 
the negro and us, then will he the proper time to give 
them the right of suffrage. To give it now would re- 
sult in serious inconveniences. It would degrade la- 
bor." 43 

Mr. Kennon, of Belmont county, in the south- 
eastern part of the State, informed the convention 
that his constituency was "decidely opposed to the ex- 
tension of the right' of suffrage to colored persons," 
and he agreed with them. 

Mr. Sawyer of Auglaize county, said that "he 
would say here in the presence of God and of this eon- 
vent ion thai he believed that the adoption of this idea 
of giving the negroes the ballot would be the signal for 
force, for bloodshed, for intestine division and perse- 
cution such as would put an end to the colored people 
of Ohio, or drive them beyond the limits of the 
State." 46 

4 » Debates, I, 58. 
" Debates, I, 459- 
"Debates, II, 638. 



80 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

That this statement, strong as it was, had some 
truth in it is evidenced by the fact that Mr. Andrews, 
the leading exponent of the negro suffrage and a del- 
egate from the Western Reserve region, practically 
acknowledged it in the following way : "It is said that, 
if you confer this right upon the colored people, the 
prejudices against them are so strong in many parts 
of the State that they could not exercise it. I can hard- 
ly comprehend such an objection as this, but I am 
bound to believe, from the declarations of intelligent 
gentlemen on this floor, that there is something in it. 
But, sir, the people of Ohio are a law-abiding people 
and when the blacks are clothed with a constitutional 
right to vote, I cannot but think it will be respected. 
There may be some practical difficulties at first, there 
may be uneasiness and excitement in some places, but 
if good men stand up, as they always will stand up, 
for the constitution and the laws, these effects will be 
transient and be followed by a quiet exercise of the 
rights." 40 

But what seems to have been the coolest and most 
rational statement of all those who were really against 
negro suffrage came from Mr. Nash, of Gallia county, 
on the Ohio river. He said, "I shall vote against strik- 
ing out this word 'white,' and for the following reas- 
ons : First, I do not believe it would be in accordance 
with public opinion. To make this change would be to 
defeat our constitution, whatever other merits it 
might contain. Such being public opinion, we cannot 
disregard it if we would. No practical statesman 
would disregard the public opinion and send forth a 
constitution with its death warrant written in it. 
And secondly, I do not believe that it would benefit the 
very people designed to be benefitted. Such is the 
state of public feeling that this right granted would 
inevitably lend to tin; oppression of the colored popu- 
lation. The very first election would lead to difficul- 

M Debates, II, 636. 



CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, 1850-1851 81 

ties and heart-burnings between the while and colored 
population and probably to open outrages. It would 
necessarily inflame the antipathies now existing be- 
tween the two races. We may say that these antipa- 
thies are wrong, unchristian; but foul words will not 
do away with facts; this body must deal with these 
facts — would be regardless of its duties by assuming 
to disregard them. The colored people should seek 
not to mix in politics and involve themselves in the 
party strifes of the country. Let them quietly pursue 
the policy of educating themselves and, by intelligence 
and moral worth, seek to remove prejudices and antip- 
athies now existing, and existing in strength sufficient 
to oppress them if they were once roused into passion- 
ate action." 47 

This was the closing speech for the negative, and 
when, immediately after this, the motion was put to 
strike out the word "white" from the first section of 
the committee report giving the ballot to all -'white 
male citizens," the negative won by the overwhelming 
vote of 12 to 6G. 48 This vote was taken on Saturday, 
February 8, 1851. The following Monday, when the 
convention met, ten members asked the privilege of 
recording their votes on the motion, and the privilege 
being given, nine of them voted nay and one aye; 4 " s«> 
the final vote on giving the ballot to the colored man 
was 13 ayes and 75 nays. 50 Every one of the votes for 
the negro came from the small Western Reserve." 1 



" Debates, II, 553- 
"Debates, II, 554- 

49 Debates, II, 556, 560. 

50 The final vote in the Convention of 1802 on this same question 
was 14 for, 19 against. 

81 One delegate from this region dared to vote against the col- 
ored man. He was from Geauga county. His constituents waited 
many years, it would seem, to show forth to the world their dis- 
approval of his act. By looking at Map No. 6, one may see that six- 
teen years afterwards, in 1867, when the State took a popular vote 
on whether they should give the negro the ballot, this same county 
of Geauga gave the largest pro-negro vote of any county in the 
whole State, in comparison with the total vote cast. 



82 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

Later in the same afternoon session in which the 
convention gave this back-set to the aspirations of the 
champions of negro rights, we find Mr. Taylor, of 
Erie county, Western Reserve, still nursing hope. He 
made a motion to authorize the State Legislature to 
"extend the suffrage to inhabitants of the State not 
hereby qualified as electors," in case it was deemed 
expedient. This motion also went down before a vote 
of 68 to 11. Thus the negroes were definitely excluded 
from any participation in the political life of the 
State, unless one would except the privilege of being 
merely counted among those who were to be repre- 
sented in both houses of the Legislature. The appor- 
tionment was made to be dependent upon the "whole 
population." 5 - Formerly, under the constitution of 
1802, they had been excluded, the apportionment 
being based upon the number of "white male inhabi- 
tants.*'" The only effect of the change upon the 
negroes was that their destiny was put more fully than 
ever in the hands of their enemies. We have seen that 
almost all of the negroes lived in the southern counties 
of the State, and we have seen that there was the 
greatest prejudice against them in this section. This 
section now, through the negroes being counted in the 
census, secured greater representation in the Legis- 
lature and therefore greater power over them. 

The next subject considered by the convention 
was how far negro education was to be in common 
with that of the whites. 

Before considering the action of the convention, 
it will be helpful to glance at the status of the negroes 
educationally up to this time. 

Prior to the year 1848, there had been no legisla- 
tive provision whatsoever for the education of the 
negroes. There had been many acts providing for the 
instruction of the "white youth" only, and one act, 

''"Ohio Constitution, 1850-1851, Art. XI, Sec. 1. 
"Ohio Constitution, 1802, Art. I, Sec. 2. 



CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, 1850-1851 83 

that of February 10, 1820, in express terms excluded 
blacks and mulattoes from the public schools. The 
act of February 24, 1818, provided for the first time in 
Ohio for the education of colored children as such aud 
directed the levy of a tax for that purpose upon the 
property of colored persons alone. Of course this tax 
yielded almost nothing. This was the faint beginning 
of public education of the negro. The act was repealed 
in less than a year after its passage by the Act of 
February 10, 1819, which, although it was more com- 
plete and effective in its details, yet appropriated no 
other funds for the support of the colored schools, 
save those collected from the property of colored per- 
sons. 54 

This law was in force at the time of the consti- 
tutional convention. Many petitions, including those 
on equal rights, which we have previously considered, 
asked that better provision be made for the education 
of this class of people. In response to this sentiment, 
the committee on education reported to the conven- 
tion the following clause respecting the establishment 
of public schools: "The General Assembly shall make 
such provision by taxation or other means — as shall 
secure a thorough and efficient system of common 
schools, free to all children in the State.*' Im- 
mediately on the submitting of the report, Mr. Saw- 
yer, the most bitter antagonist of all negro rights, 
moved to insert the word "white"' before "children," 
thus making the clause provide schools, "free to all 
while children in the State." The reason given by 
Mr. Sawyer for his motion was that, aside from social 
objections, the opening of the public schools to the 
colored children would have a tendency to encourage 
negro immigration to the State, and thus Ohio would 
be burdened with the support of a still greater popula- 

M Under the working of this law there were hut 22 
schools and hut 702 scholars :n the year [853 in the whole State 
of Ohio.— Report State Commissioners of Common Schools, 1853. 



8 4 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

tion of impoverished, if not vicious negroes. 55 The 
following argument on the other side was made by 
Mr. Taylor, of the Western Reserve : "The law of self- 
preservation demands that we give to all within the 
reach of our laws a good moral and intellectual train- 
ing, or they will become the pest of society, being 
compelled to grow up in vice and ignorance. Shall we 
then by the adoption of this motion constitute a class 
who will become the inmates of our poor-houses and 
the tenants of our jails? No. But I am told that the 
negro belongs to a degraded and inferior race; so 
much the more reason for their education and im- 
provement." 56 

While long speeches pro and con were made on 
this motion, strange to say, the vote thereon is not 
recorded in the minutes. It is probable that the 
motion was put and carried, judging from the words 
of a later speaker, Mr. Bates, who said, "I must ex- 
press my regret and astonishment at the vote given a 
few minutes since, by which the word 'white' was 
inserted in the third section." 57 But it all came to 
naught, for soon after the convention decided to omit 
all of the clause after the word "schools," 57 and thus 
the settlement of details was left to the Legislature. 

The report of the committee on education had 
been accompanied by a minority report. The con- 
vention now proceeded to discuss this report, which, 
while favoring all that was contained in the majority 
report, added a proviso to the effect that "black and 
mulatto youth should not attend the schools for white 
youth unless by common consent." 57 

This left the settlement of the question to the 
separate districts. A motion was now made and car- 
ried to recommit the whole subject to the committee 
with certain instructions. 

53 Debates, II, II. 
" Debates, II, u. 

67 Debates, II, iS. 



CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, 1850-1851 85 

But among a confused mass of motions made 
about this time, we find one interesting one that gives 
us a good idea as to how the convention ;in<l the peo- 
ple of the State stood on the idea of having the black 
and white children in the same school house. This mo- 
tion was to eliminate completely the above mentioned 
proviso, thereby throwing open the public schools to 
blacks and whites alike. The motion was lost by a vote 
27 to 61, 58 the voters lining up on this very much as 
they had on the two previous motions already dis- 
cussed, viz, to give the negro the ballot and to en- 
roll him in the militia. (See Map No. 5). And the 
explanation for the vote on all three motions is the 
same and is probably to be found in the following 
statement made by Mr. Archbold, of Monroe county: 
"As a member of the constitutional convention, I am 
convinced that public sentiment demands that the 
children of white parents should be kept separate in 
the common schools from the children of black peo- 
ple, and as a representative of the people I am bound 
to defer to their wishes." 58 

It was not till a few weeks before adjournment 
that the convention took up the second report of the 
committee and finally settled the matter of education. 
The clause that had caused so much discussion was 
now definitely fixed, and it provided simply for the es- 
fcablishment and maintenance of an efficient system of 
common schools, with no mention of the negroes. The 
question of who should participate in the privileges of 
the schools was left to the direction of the Legislature, 
to settle as circumstances and public sentiment might 
determine. 50 

The subject of immigration of negroes into the 
State was taken up and discussed a little, but never 
came to a vote, as it seemed to be the general consen- 
sus of opinion that it was impossible to enforce any 



M Debates, II, 19. 
M Debates, II, 699. 



86 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

provision to keep them out. The idea of the State 
giving financial aid to the scheme for colonizing the 
negroes in Africa was discussed. The southern counties 
generally favored the project, and the northern coun- 
ties opposed it. Some opposed it on the ground of 
justice and humanity; others, especially northern 
members, because the whole State would be taxed for 
the benefit of the southern counties. Many bitter ene- 
mies of the negro opposed it on the ground that it 
would encourage the negroes to come into Ohio by 
placing a premium on immigration, and the State 
"would become a great lazar house for all runaway 
and emancipated negroes around us." 60 The motion 
to give financial aid to the movement was lost by a 
vote of 26 to 71, even Mr. Sawyer's name being among 
the nays. 

Having considered all the proposals before the 
convention in which the negroes were concerned, let 
us now take a hasty review of what we have found. 
We have found (1) that even the reception of peti- 
tions from, or in behalf of, negroes was seriously ob- 
jected to; (2) that there was a very real division of 
the State into a "North" and a "South" over the negro 
question, and that the prejudice against the blacks 
seemed to be in proportion to their number, being 
much greater in the southern counties, where the ne- 
gro population was quite large, than in the northern, 
where a negro was to be found just here and there; 
(3) that the negroes were debarred from enrolling in 
the militia of the State by a vote of 22 to 62; (4) that 
they were refused the right of suffrage by the overf 
whelming vote of 75 to 13; (5) that they were denied 
the privilege of entering the white schools by a vote 
of 26 to 61; and (6) wo have found running through 
the whole debate intense prejudice or antipathy. As 
my primary object is to show what have been the 
thoughts and feelings of the people in the past on 

00 Debates, II, 598. 



CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, 1850-1851 87 

the negro question, I can close this chapter in no bet- 
ter wav than to let a member of the convention him- 
self do the interpreting of the actions of that body- 
"What accounts for this treatment of the negro? 
It is the color of his skin. Can you define that color 
precisely? We have heard of many instances of 
gentlemen of very high standing who have been tak- 
en for persons of 'color.' Suppose some legal con- 
sequences had been involved in the cases to which I 
allude, would the question of 'color' have been de- 
cided by the eye? No, certainly not. For by 'col- 
or' in these discussions we do not mean color at all. 
It is something with which the eye has noth- 
ing to do — optics are out of the question. What is 
it, then? Why, you must get his genealogy from 
the time of the deluge and, if you can discover one sin- 
gle cross with the descendants of Ham — he must stand 
condemned as a person of 'color,' for the principle is, 
that the mixture never runs out. Ten or ten thousand 
times diluted by mixtures with the Caucasian race, 
and it is still the same." 61 

61 Debates II, 600. 



CHAPTER VI. 

LEGAL STATUS, 1850-1912. 

After the repeal, or, rather, modification of the 
Black Laws 1 in 1849, the negroes were still under cer- 
tain legal disabilities not suffered by the whites. They 
could not sit on juries and therefore were tried by a 
jury, not of peers, but of white men prejudiced against 
them ; they could not gain legal residence within the 
State which would entitle them to enter a county 
poor-house or a State charity institution of any sort ; 
they could not enter the public schools along with the 
white children, but were given a limited amount of 
inferior instruction all by themselves; and the State 
constitution prohibited to them the elective franchise. 

In the constitution framed by the convention of 
1850-51 and adopted by popular vote, we find them de- 
barred from the militia and again denied the privilege 
of voting. While other measures in regard to the ne- 
groes were discussed in this convention and strong 
hints given as to what the State Legislature ought to 
do because its laws were not of so permanent a char- 
acter, no further discriminations were embodied in 
the fundamental law of the State. 

March 14, 1853, the Legislature disposed of one 
of the questions which had agitated the constitution- 
al convention by passing an act for the better regula- 
tion of the public schools. 2 So far as the negroes were 
concerned, this was an improvement over the law 
made four years before, but in both laws their school- 
ing was arranged to take place in separate schools 
from the whites. March 18, 1864, this law was amend- 
ed again, but still the school children were classified 
on the basis of color. 3 

x See Chapter III. 
2 Ohio Laws, II, 441. 
: ' Ohio Laws, LXI, 35. 



LEGAL STATUS SINCE 1850 89 

Several attempts were made to have these laws 
declared unconstitutional, but the attempts failed. 
The courts held that the law was "not one of exclusion 
but a law of classification, providing for the education 
of all youths within the prescribed ages" but doing it 
in the most practical, and in fact only feasible, way, 
that by separate schools for blacks and whites. 4 

In the decision of the Supreme Court in the case 
of Van Camp vs. Board of Education of Logan, Ohio, 
in 1859, the above-mentioned law was upheld. But 
what is of far more interest in this case is the fact that 
the Supreme Court now reversed all its previous de- 
cisions on the matter of the quantity of negro blood 
necessary to exclude the owner from the white schools. 
We have seen 5 that the Supreme Court had declared 
in five different cases, 6 that a person having just a 
shade less than half negro blood in his veins was more 
a white person than a black and therefore was entitled 
to vote and to enjoy all other privileges equally with 
the whites. In the last two of these cases it had been 
decided by a mere majority vote. This was in 1842. 
Now in 1859 we find the Supreme Court by a vote of 
three to two deciding that "children of three-eights 
African and five-eighths white blood, but who are dis- 
tinctly colored, and generally treated and regarded as 
colored children by the community where they reside, 
are not as of right entitled to admission into the com- 
mon schools, set apart under the act of 1853 for the 
instruction of white youth." The decision handed 

* linos Van Camp vs. The Board of Education of Logan, Su- 
preme Court, November, 1859. 

State vs. McCann, XXI, O. S. 198 

Leans vs. Board of Education, Cincinnati, Hamilton District 
Court, April 1876. 

6 See Chapter II. 

"Polly Gray vs. The State, IV Ohio R. 353- 

Williams vs. School Directors, etc., Wright R. 579. 

Lane vs. Baker et al, XII Ohio R. 237. 

Jeffries vs. Ankeny et al, XI Ohio R. 372. 

Thacker vs. Haivk, lb, 376. 



9 o THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

down by Chief Justice Peck is so much along the line 
of this investigation that it really deserves to be quot- 
ed almost in toto, especially as it comes from so high 
a source. He said : "In determining what is to be un- 
derstood by the term 'white' and 'colored,' as used 
in this act, (1853) we may look to the state of things 
existing at the time, the evils complained of, and the 
remedies sought to be applied : For nearly two gen- 
erations, blacks and mulattoes had been a proscribed 
and degraded race in Ohio. They were debarred from 
the elective franchise and prohibited from immigra- 
tion and settlement within our borders, except under 
severe restrictions. They were also excluded from our 
common schools and all means of public instruction- 
incapacitated from serving upon juries, and denied 
the privilege of testifying in cases where a white per- 
son was a party. It would be strange, indeed, if such 
a state of things had not increased, in the present gen- 
eration, the natural repugnance of the white race to 
communion and fellowship with them. 

"Whether consistent with true philanthropy or 
not, it is nevertheless true, that in many portions, if 
not throughout the State, there was and still is an al- 
most invincible repugnance to such communion and 
fellowship. It is also to be borne in mind, that a class 
had grown up among us, which, though partly black 
had still a preponderance of white blood in their veins, 
and that the courts, influenced in some degree by the 
severe and somewhat penal character of the restric- 
tions as to blacks and mulattoes, had held that such 
persons were not only entitled to vote at elections, 
and testify in our courts of justice, but were also ad- 
missible into the schools for white children. It is 
notorious that these decisions, especially the last, did 
not receive the hearty approval of the State at large. 
The prejudice of ages could not be dissipated by one 
or more judicial decisions, and the frequent suits 
brought to enforce such admission, evidence such feel- 



LEGAL STATUS SINCE 1850 91 

ing 011 the part of young and old. These decisions in 
regard to the right of persons more than half white to 
testify, and to attend the common schools, have had 
tluir day, and accomplished their purpose, and we do 
not seek to disturb them. 

"The plaintiff admits that they are, in fact, if not 
in law, colored children. Our standard philologist, 
Webster, defines 'colored people' to be 'black people' 
— Africans or their descendants, mixed or unmixed. 
Such is also the common understanding of the term. 
A person who has any perceptible admixture of Afri- 
can blood, is generally called a colored person. In 
affixing the epithet 'colored,' we do not ordinarily 
stop to estimate the prescribed shade, whether light 
or dark, though where precision is desired, they are 
sometimes called 'light colored,' or 'dark colored,' as 
the case may be. If we look at the evils the law was 
intended to remedy, we shall arrive at the same re- 
sult. One of the evils undoubtedly was the repug- 
nance felt by many of the white youths and their par- 
ents to mingling, socially and on equal terms, with 
those who had any perceptible admixture of African 
blood. This feeling or prejudice, if it be one, had been 
fostered by long years of hostile legislation and social 
exclusion. The general assembly, legislating for the 
people as they were, rather than as, perhaps, they 
ought to have been, while providing for the education 
and consequent ultimate elevation of a long degraded 
class, yielded for the time to a deep-seated prejudice, 
which could not be eradicated suddenly, if at all. Such 
an arrangement, in the present state of public feeling, 
is far better for both parties — for the colored youth 
as well as those entirely white. If those a shade more 
white than black were to be forced upon the white 
youth against their consent, the whole policy of the 
law would be defeated. The prejudice and antago- 
nism of the whites would be aroused; bickerings and 
contentions become the order of the day, and the mor- 



92 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

al and mental improvement of both classes retarded. 
It would seem then, from this examination of the law 
of 1853, and the circumstances under which it was 
passed, that the words 'white' and 'colored,' as used 
in that act, were both used in the ordinary and com- 
mon acceptation, and that any other construction 
would do violence to the legislative intent, and per- 
petuate the very evils the act was intended to remedy. 
Such was also the construction which the act upon its 
passage received in many portions, if not throughout 
the State. The colored population, whether more or 
less than mulatto, affiliated with the blacks. Schools 
were organized, and a wholesome rivalry inaugurated 
between the two classes." 7 

This classification law of 1853 was again before 
the court in 1876 in the case of Lewis vs. Board of Ed- 
ucation of Cincinnati. This action was in the case of 
a colored boy who was compelled to walk four miles in 
order to get to the colored school to which he was le- 
gally assigned. He went to a white school near to his 
home and tried to enter but was refused admittance. 
His father brought suit to compel his reception into 
the white school, but the court held that he would 
have to attend the colored school, as the law of 1853 
was a law of classification only and was fair. 8 

In 1881 a similar case arose in the United States 
District Court of Southern Ohio, with a different out- 
come. "In AYashington Township, Clermont County, 
Ohio, there are both white and colored schools. James 
IT. Vines, a colored boy sixteen years old, chose to 
attend the white school, because it was over a mile 
nearer his home. The teacher denied the bov en- 
trance. A suit for damages ensued, and the case 
finally reached the United States District Court. 

7 Van Camp vs. Board of Education of Logan County, Ohio, 
November Session, Supreme Court, 1859. 

"State of Ohio ex rcl., Lewis vs. Board of Education of Cin- 
cinnati, Hamilton District Court, April Term, 1876. 



LEGAL STATUS SINCE 1850 93 

Judge Baxter charged the jury that, as the law now 
stands, the colored boy and. the white boy are equal 
and the teacher had no right to discriminate between 
them- If the colored boy found it more convenient 
to attend the white school, no one could interfere 
with his choice. A verdict of $50.00 damages was 
given." 1 ' This decision must have been arrived at be- 
cause of a violation of the 14th Amendment to the 
United States Constitution, or because the act was in 
violation of the Equal Eights Bill passed by Congress; 
otherwise it would not have come up before a United 
States Court. 

The act of 1853 did not make it compulsory on the 
different localities of the State to provide separate 
schools for the blacks. Just after the Civil War 
there were some small places that saw fit for one rea- 
son or another to admit the colored people to the 
white schools. In the seventies both Toledo and Col- 
umbus threw open the white schools to them. Other 
towns followed, and this movement grew until 1887, 
February 22, when, on the grounds of expediency and 
economy, more than for the purpose of giving justice 
to the negroes, the law of 1853 and its amendment of 
18G4 were repealed, and the public schools were 
thrown open to whites and blacks alike. 10 

This repeal act of 1887 met with stubborn resis- 
tance in many quarters and even to this day remains 
a dead letter in several towns of the State. The fol- 
lowing comments from several places will give a good 
idea of the reception of this idea of equality in the 
schools by the people of the State. John Hancock, of 

"Ohio State School Cimmissioners' Report, 1881, 138. 

'"The act of 1887, repealing the separate school system, also 
repealed the following act, passed January 31, 1861 : "A person of 
pure white blood, who intermarries with any negro, or person having 
a distinct and visible admixture of African blood, and any negro, 
or person having a distinct and visible admixture of African blood, 
who intermarries with any person of pure white blood, shall be 
fined not more than $100, or imprisoned not more than three months 
or both."— Revised Statutes, Sec. 6987. 



94 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

Chillicothe, writing in the Ohio Educational Monthly 
of January, 1888, says: "The abolition of colored 
schools by the last Legislature has been the cause of 
great strife and bitterness in many communities — 
strife and bitterness not likely to end for many a long- 
day. It was urged in the discussion of the measure 
that the law providing for separate schools for colored 
youth was the last relic of race prejudice on our stat- 
ute books, and that it ought to be wiped out. Senti- 
mentalism dictated. The black race has not been ben- 
efitted, but on the contrary, the old race prejudices 
that slumbred, and in time were bound to die out, or 
at least to become greatly ameliorated, have been stirr- 
ed into fresh activity and virulence." 11 A United Press 
dispatch from Ripley, Brown county, under date of 
February 14, 1889, said : "A peculiar state of affairs 
is brought to light among the farming communities 
in this county, produced by the now famous 'Arnett 
law.' Formerly the farms had numerous colored ten- 
ants but since the passage of the Arnett bill, which 
made mixed schools, the colored tenant farmer gradu- 
ally is being driven out. Whenever his lease upon the 
land runs out he is quietly informed by his white 
landlord that the latter has another man for his place, 
and upon his applying to another farmer in the same 
district he is certain to be refused. In this manner 
the white farmers gradually, without violence or 
harsh means, remove the colored people from the com- 
munity, until there is not one left in some of the school 
districts and the law which was intended to benefit, 
does positive injury to the colored man." 12 

"The white people of Felicity, Clermont county, 
Ohio, kept colored children out of the schools by force, 
and beat and maltreated the colored parents, destroy- 

11 Ohio Educational Monthly, Jan. 1888, 59. 

The colored school in Chillicthe has remained to this day 
practically as it was before 1887, and the colored people, in the main, 
m to take it as a matter of course and are satisfied. 
'■ Cincinnati Bnquirer, February 15, 1889. 



LEGAL STATUS SINCE 1850 95 

ed their property in some cases, and established a boy- 
cott against all colored people, to drive them out. The 
Republican party leaders are also leaders in these out- 
rages. We find no reference to these matters in the 
Governor's message." 13 

"The constitution and the law of Ohio guarantee 
to the colored children of Oxford, Ohio, admission to 
the public schools, but the white citizens of that village 
nullify that constitution, and deny the colored chil- 
dren their school rights Seventy-five of the lead- 
ing citizens have banded together to boycott these 
poor negro children — not to protect themselves 
against the vote, the rule of these negroes — but to de- 
ny them the opportunity of education. And yet the 
people of Oxford would vote to enforce negro rule in 
Louisiana." 14 

"Another serious outbreak of race prejudice is 
reported from Ohio. New Richmond, a town of 3,000 
inhabitants in Clermont County, has about 700 white 
school children to 300 black. After the repeal of the 
'Black Laws' two years ago, and the consequent throw- 
ing open of the public schools of the State to children 
of both races, on equal terms, the negroes of New 
Richmond were persuaded to have their children kept 
in separate rooms, and thus virtually allow the old 
line of distinction to be maintained. But one negro, 
James Ringold, decided to insist upon his rights, and 
sent his children into a room occupied by white chil- 
dren. The little negroes were abused and made mis- 
erable in every way, and finally Ringold appealed to 
the courts to protect him and them, suing the Super- 
intendent of Schools and thirteen prominent citizens 
for $5,000 damages. On Tuesday last the Circuit 
Court decided in his favor giving him one cent and 

u Cleveland Plain Dealer, January, 1889. 

''Judge William M. Dickson, of Cincinnati, in The Commercial 
Gazette, January, 1888. 



9 6 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

costs. This showed the negroes generally that they 
could legally send their children into the rooms occu- 
pied by the white children, and they did so on Friday. 
Great excitement resulted and so much disgust was 
expressed that on Saturday the School Board closed 
the schools for the remaining three months of the 
school year, as the only way out of the difficulty. The 
situation yesterday is thus described in a dispatch to 
the Times : 'This has been one of the most interesting- 
Sundays the place has ever known. The streets have 
been crowded all day. All other topics were forgot- 
ten. Ministers counselled forbearance, and wise heads 
attempted to calm the impetuous. Each side professes 
to fear violence from the other.' " 15 

In the town of Xenia, where the population has 
always been about one-third negro, owing partly to its 
being the location of Wilberforce College, there was a 
hard struggle between the two races soon after the 
repeal of the separate school law in 1887. The white 
people insisted on keeping the separate schools, prac- 
tically as before, and they won finally. During the 
heat of the struggle a colored girl, urged on by a color- 
ed lawyer, went to the white high school to enroll. 
She was refused but went into the room and defiantly 
sat down. Although consternation reigned, they did 
not forcibly eject her. Suit was then brought for dam- 
ages, and the school board lost, but it was not beaten. 
By the use of a little "gerrymandering" they then dis- 
tricted the city so that the main body of colored chil- 
dren would fall in the colored schools, and the main 
bodv of the white children in the white schools. Of 
course there would be some white children included 
in the black district and, by making special request, 
these would be given the privilege of going over to 
the white school. The same held good for the black 
children in the white district. The result was that 

15 New York livening Post, April, 1889. 



LEGAL STATUS SINCE 1850 97 

no white children attended the black schools and but 
a few black children attended the white schools. 10 

We have seen now the end of the struggle for 
equal school privileges for the two races. The strug- 
gle for the elective franchise was waged more fiercely 
but came to its end sooner. This was due not to State 
action but to the action of the United States. The 
closing years of the struggle are filled with interest. 
We remember that in the first constitution of 1802 
and the second of 1851, "Every white male" 17 was en- 
titled to vote. We have seen that the Supreme Court 
in 1842 declared that all men nearer white than black, 
or of the grade between the mulatto and the white, 
were, so far as blood and color were concerned, enti- 
tled to vote as "white male citizens." 18 We have also 
seen this decision set aside in 1859 by the Supreme 
Court. 19 And in this same 3 r ear, 1850, the following 
statute was placed upon the statute book of the State: 
"Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the Stale 
of Ohio, That the judge or judges of any election hold 
under the authority of any of the laws of this State, 
shall reject the vote of any person offering to vote at 
such elections, and claiming to be a white male citizen 
of the United States, whenever it shall appear to such 
judge or judges that the person so offering to vote has 
a distinct and visible admixture of African blood" 2 " 

Near the close of the war there was quite an agi- 
tation over allowing the negroes to vote, possibly caus- 
ed to some extent by the fact that many of them had 
gone to war and fought for their country. The Ohio 

10 This condition of affairs has continued and is in existence 
today. I received my information about Xenia direct from a perfect- 
ly reliable source while personally investigating conditions there. 
I was asked for good reasons not to mention the name of my in- 
formant. 

17 Constitution of 1851, Art. V, Sec. 1. 

18 Jeffries vs. Ankcny, XI Ohio Reports, 372. 
Thacker vs. Hawk, XI Ohio Reports, 376. 

1 Van Camp vs. Logan, November Session, 1859. 
Ohio Laws, LVI, 120. 



VI 



9 8 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

Democratic State Convention, assembled in Colum- 
bus, August 24, 1865, declared "that the effort now 
being made to confer the right of suffrage upon ne- 
groes was an invidious attempt to overthrow popular 
institutions by bringing the right to vote into dis- 
grace" 21 It also feared that if allowed to vote, the 
negro would hold the balance of power in State poli- 
tics and would therefore be subject to white dema- 
gogues and renegades ; that the white laborer, by force 
of negro competition, would be reduced to the condi- 
tion of Russian serfs and "Ohio would become the ne- 
gro paradise and the white man's wilderness." 

April 6, 1867, the General Assembly decided to 
put the matter of negro suffrage directly to the people 
for decision and submitted an amendment to the State 
constitution providing that "All male citizens" 
should have the elective franchise. This was voted on 
in October of the same year and was rejected by the 
large majority of 38,353. 22 Thirty-two counties gave 

21 Pamphlet, 1865 — Negro Suffrage and Equality, 15. 

"Just as a good cartoon often serves to depict things more 
clearly and vividly than much cold prose could do, so the following 
write-up of the above election pictures to our minds the feeling that 
held sway in the minds of the white voters of the State. By its 
exaggeration and the fact that the article was so extensively used 
at the time by the newspapers of the State, one is convinced that the 
truth that it clothed was real. The article is headed 

"MR. NASBY ASSISTS IN THE OHIO ELECTION." 

"Feelin thet the time hed arrived which wuz to deside whether 
7000 degradid niggers wuz to grind 500000 proud Caucashuns into 
the dust, I felt thet if I shood fail in my dooty now, I shood be 
foriver disgraced. Accordingly, I put in the elecshun day at a 
Dimocratic town in Ohio — the battle field — the place into which I 
made a speech doorin the campane. 

"I arrived ther on the mornin' of the elecshun, and found thet 
comprehensive arrangements hed bin made fur defeatin this most 
nefarus and dangerous proposishun. 

"Paradin the streets az early as 7 A. M. wuz a wagon containin 
25 virgins runnin frum 27 to 41, and over their heads wuz banners 
with the inscripshuns : 'Fathers, save us frum nigger ekality ! White 
husband or Nun.' 

"In another wagon wuz a collecshun of men which hed bin 



LEGAL STATUS SINCE 1850 99 

a majority in favor of negro suffrage, and fifty-six 
counties gave majorities against it. (See Map No. 6.) 

This expression of the people plainly told their 
representatives in the State Legislature what action 
they wanted from them in any measure affecting the 
negroes. Congress had proposed to the States the 
Fourteenth Amendment in June, 18G6, and Ohio had 
ratified it in January, 18G7. 23 One year later, Janu- 
ary, 1868, the Legislature, feeling that they had made 
a mistake, judging from the popular vote just taken 
on negro suffrage, rescinded the resolution of ratifi- 
cation. 24 

April 16, 1868, the General Assembly, in order to 
carry out more fully the will of the people, passed "An 

hired f rum the railroade whoose banners red : 'Shel ignerent niggers 
vote beside the intelligint white men?' and the follerin verse: 
" 'Shel niggers black this land possess, 
And rool us whites up here? 
Oh no, my frends, we ruther guess 
We'll never stand that ere.' 

"Hangin over the elecshun polls wuz a peece uv muslin onto 
which wuz painted in large letters, 'Caucashuns, Respeck yer Noses 
—the Nigger Stinks !' Then I knowed it wuz safe. That odor hez 
never yet bin resisted by the Dimocrasy and it hez its influence on 
Republikins. 

"I never saw sich enthoosiism, or more indicashuns of pride of 
race. As ividence of the deep feelin in the community I state that 
nine paupers in the poor house demanded to be taken to the polls 
that they might enter their protest agin bringin the niggers up to an 
ekality with them. This wuz nine gain with no offsets ez there wuz 
no abolitionist in the institooshun. Two men in the jail for petty 
larceny wuz, at their request, taken out of doorance vile by the 
sheriff, thet they might by the ballot protest agin bein degradid by 
bein compelled when their time wuz out to acknowledge the nigger 
ez their ekal. 

"One enthoosiistic Democrat, who cost us $5.00 hed to be carried 
to the polls. He had commenced early at one of the groceries and 
had succumbed before votin. We carried the patriotic man to the 
polls, put a strait ticket into his fingers, and guided his hand to the 
box. Ashoorin him thet it wuz alright he suffered me to hold his 
hand out to the judge, who took the ballot and dropped it in the box, 
'Thank Hivin !' sed he, 'the nagar is not yit my ayquil.'" — Ohio 
State Journal. Oct. 21, 1867. 

11 Laws of Ohio, LX1V, 320. 

u Laws of Ohio, LXV, 280. 



MAP 6 SHOWING VOTE By C6VNTH5 IH OCTOBER i$l>7, 
ON GIVING SUFFRAGE TO NEGRO. 32 COUNTIES VOTt 
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io2 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

Act to Preserve the Purity of Elections.' 125 The object 
of the law was to minimize the chances of negro voting, 
by certain strong provisions : Any person, offering to 
vote, who had the least negro blood visible, was com- 
pelled to take an oath to answer certain questions, and 
the object of these questions was to elicit the confes- 
sion that he was a negro. If he swore falsely, he was 
to be imprisoned in the State penitentiary for three to 
ten years. The judge of elections receiving the vote 
was made liable to six months in the county jail, and 
a civil action might be brought against him by any 
citizen of the county for $500.00 damages. 

Such was the sentiment in Ohio when Congress 
on February 6, 1869, presented to the States for rat- 
ification the Fifteenth Amendment, which declared 
that "The right of citizens of the United States to vote 
shall not be denied or abridged by the United States 
or by any State on account of race, color, or previous 
condition of servitude." The spirit of this amendment 
being against the constant policy of the State and es- 
pecially against the popular vote on negro suffrage 
so recently taken, the Legislature on May 4, 1809, for- 
warded to Congress her refusal to ratify. 20 Much 
pressure was brought to bear on the State to have this 
reconsidered and, finally, when it was certain that the 
amendment would pass regardless of Ohio's action, 
the matter was again taken up by the Legislature, and 
it was decided to ratify, the vote in the Senate stand- 
ing 19 for ratification and 18 against. 27 The measure 
was signed by the Speaker of the House and the Pres- 
ident of the Senate January 27, 1870, and sent to 
Congress. The Fifteenth Amendment soon went into 
effect, and in this way the negro gained the ballot in 
Ohio, and (lie long struggle was over. 

-' Laws of Ohio, LXV, 07. 
M Laws of Ohio, LXVI, 424- 
- T Senate Journal, LXVI, 44- 



LEGAL STATUS SINCE 1850. 103 

A little indication of how the law went into ef- 
fect may be gleaned from the following: "In April, 
1870, the colored citizens of Chill icothe exercised for 
the first time their right to the ballot. There was not 
wanting, among the conservative citizens of the an- 
cient capital, many who predicted disturbances at the 
polls, but the election passed without even an ap- 
proach to an 'emeute.' Large numbers were drawn to 
the vicinity of the polls by the novelty of the scene, 
and perhaps, too, in expectation of collisions; but 
nothing occurred to mark the day but the sound good 
sense shown by the enfranchised race. Many came 
early to the polls, before the white voters had collected 
in any numbers, voted and went their way. Those who 
came late, or remained at the polls, avoided all dem- 
onstrations calculated to arouse the antipathy of their 
opponents. Among the humorous incidents of the 
day, the following, related of an aged colored citizen, 
who presented himself at the East Scioto precinct, 
clothed with the new dignity, will carry off the palm 
for scenic and dramatic effect: Depositing his ballot 
with a solemnity of manner which clearly evinced his 
estimate of the act, and hesitating as if he did not con- 
sider the great transaction complete, he was told to 
give way for the next voter. Looking anxiously at the 
judges he inquired: 'Whah's my stificate?' 'What do 
you mean?' inquired the judges. 'Why, I want my 
'stificate to show de ole woman dat I done voted. She 
'clar she won't bleeve me less I bring de receet.' " 28 

In 1884 an act was passed, and this was amended 
in 1894, giving to the negro full equal rights. 

As the wording of this is important, for many 
reasons, but especially for an understanding of I he 
way in which it lias since been enforced, I quote quite 
fully from it: "Whereas, it is essential to just gov- 
ernment that wo recognize and protect all men as 
equal before the law, and that a democratic form of 

28 History of Ross and Highland Counties, 1880. 



I04 THE COLOR UNE IN OHIO 

government should mete out equal and exact justice 
to all, of whatever nativity, race, color, or persuasion, 
religions or political; and it being the appropriate ob- 
ject of legislation to enact great fundamental princi- 
ples into law, therefore : 

"Section 4426 — 1. That all persons within the 
jurisdiction of said State shall be entitled to the full 
and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advan- 
tages, facilities, and privileges of inns, restaurants, 
eating houses, barber shops, public conveyances on 
land or water, theatres and all other places of public 
accommodation and amusement, subject only to the 
conditions and limitations established by law, and ap- 
plicable alike to all citizens. 

"Section 4426—2. ( Penalty— Fine, from flOO to 
$500, and imprisonment, from 30 days to 90 days). 

"Section 4426—3. That no citizen of the State of 
Ohio, posessing all other qualifications — shall be dis- 
qualified to serve as grand or petit juror in any court 
of said State on account of race or color. (Penalty 
for officer disregarding this the same as above). 29 

So far as I have been able to find, no law respect- 
ing the negro has since been passed, and today the 
laws of Ohio make absolutely no distinction in regard 
to the rights and liberties of the white and black citi- 
zens of the State. 

29 Revised Statutes of Ohio, Sec. 4426. 



CHAPTER VII. 

SOCIAL STATUS, 1850 — 1912. 

Legal equality and social equality did not go 
hand in hand. There is nothing that I have been able 
to find tending to prove that the white man, during 
this period from 1850 to 1912, granted further legal 
privileges to the black man on account of holding him 
in higher esteem. His voting privilege was given him 
by the United States and not by the people of his own 
State. I think it fair and correct to conclude, taking 
an extended view of the whole subject and especially 
in view of present-day conditions, that the final rem- 
nants of the Black Laws were repealed in 1887 for the 
following reason : The people of the State were will- 
in to accept the theory of equality before the law 1 (the 
practise of it they could look out for afterwards) if, 
as a compensation, they could secure internal peace in 
politics 2 and freedom from reproach from outside 
sources for mistreatment of the people in behalf of 
whom so many of their fellow-countrymen had given 
up their lives. 

There is no denying the fact that the colored peo- 
ple themselves improved much during this period in 
more ways than one. This they did for the reason that 
the door of progress was thrown open to them more 
than ever before. Yet their real standing in the white 
man's innermost feeling did not improve. 

To prove this statement so that it may have more 
meaning and weight is the justification for the 
present chapter. The way in which this feeling mani- 
fested itself was somewhat different. In the descrip- 

1 Revised Statutes, 4426. 

2 As the negro was in possession of the voting privilege and at 
the same time was anxious for equal school privileges with the 
whites, the promise of this concession was a constant sop served up 
to him by the political parties. 



I0 6 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

tion of the social status before 1850 I pictured con- 
ditions in Cincinnati quite fully, since they were typ- 
ical and at the same time full of interest because of 
the large number of black residents there. In this 
chapter, while I shall give several incidents as evi- 
dences of prejudice from all sections of the State, I 
shall describe conditions in detail in two places only, 
viz., Columbus, the capital, located in the center of 
the State, and Waverly, one of the many small towns 
of the southern part of the State. 

In the Life of Thomas Morris we find the follow- 
ing incident recorded: A colored clergyman of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church about 1850 applied to the 
judge of a court in Brown county, having proper jur- 
isdiction, for legal authority to perform the marriage 
ceremony. The prejudice of the judge was so strong 
against the color of the applicant that, in the exercise 
of his authority, he peremptorily refused to grant the 
negro clergyman the license to which he was legally 
entitled. The matter was carried up to the Supreme 
Court, and there a mandamus was issued to compel 
the lower court to grant the license asked for. 3 

The following incident occurred in Cincinnati in 
1859 : A mulatto woman stepped upon the platform 
of a street car under ordinary circumstances for the 
purpose of taking her seat in the car as a passenger. 
The conductor immediately ordered her to leave the 
car, which she refused to do, claiming a right to ride. 
The conductor thereupon forcibly ejected her. She 
brought action for assault and battery. The railroad 
claimed in defense that as she was a person of color 
they had a right to expel her from the car, as they 



.•< 



B. F. Morris, Life of Thomas Morris, 339. 
The following from the Portsmouth, Ohio, Blade, January 26, 
1010, will be interesting: "William Kinnon, colored, applied for a 
lic< use Saturday to marry Mary Leonard, a white woman. Probate 
Judge Beatty refused the license. He says that, unless he is corn- 
lulled to by mandamus proceedings, he will not issue a license to a 
white woman and colored man, or vice versa." 



SOCIAL STATUS SINCE 1850 107 

were common carriers for hire. The judge, in hand- 
ing- down his decision, fixing a fine of 110.00 and costs, 
said, "It is not pretended that the passenger was in 
any way disorderly, that she refused to pay her fare, 
Hint there was any lack of room for her accommoda- 
tion, or that there was any objection to her whatsoever 
but her complexion. As she appears upon the stand 
she seems to be about as much of the white as tin- 
African race, in fact a mulatto, and apparently one of 
the better portion of her class." 4 

In 1876 Wilberforce College, located near Xenia 
and the only colored institution of any pretentions in 
the State, was burned to the ground by citizens who 
were driven to desperation by having such a drawing- 
card for the immigration of colored people into their 
midst. President Daniel Payne, writing of the calam- 
ity that had befallen the colored people, said, "Every- 
thing indicated a prosperous future, when suddenly 
the buildings were set on fire. The catastrophe fell 
upon us like a clap of thunder in a clear sky. It was 
a time of lamentation for our friends, and rejoicing 
for our enemies. Said one of the latter, 'Now their 
buildings are burned, there is no hope for them.' An- 
other said, 'I wish lightning from Heaven would burn 
down Wilberforce.' This one supposed his impious 
] nayer was more than answered." 5 

The colored people of the State of Ohio held a 
convention in Chillicothe August 22, 1873, and from 
their resolutions the following will help us to see the 
situation from their point of view: "Resolved, that 
Republican constituencies fail to recognize the fact 
that rights and political preferment should depend 
upon merit, and not upon the mere accidents of race 
and color. If a stranger visiting Ohio should consider 
the race of the men appointed to office by national au- 

4 Weekly Laiv Gazette, IV, 359-360- 

"Historical Sketches of Ohio, article on Higher Educational 
Institutions, by Daniel A. Payne. 



108 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

thorities, or if he should make a tour of the court 
houses, the State House, the asylums, aud other build- 
ings controlled by the Republican party, he would be 
justified in believing that there are no colored men 
in the State, so rigidly are we excluded from anything 
that might look like an equality of right in office- 
holding. 

"Resolved, That we, the colored voters of the 
State of Ohio, in convention assembled, do protest 
against the unjust discrimination toward us by the 
representatives of the party whom we aid in securing 
official positions. 

"Resolved, That the colored voters of Ohio do not 
consider themselves under eternal obligations to a 
party which favors us as a class, only in proportion 
as it is driven by its own necessities." 6 

The effect of these resolutions ntay be seen in the 
following editorial article in The Columbus Dispatch 
of September 8, 1873, but two weeks after the resolu- 
tions were made : "Alluding to the nomination of the 
colored preacher, Poindexter, for Representative to 
the State Legislature, by the Republicans of Franklin 
county, the Cleveland Plain Dealer truthfully re- 
marks: 'The object the Franklin Republicans had in 
nominating Poindexter is evidently accomplished, so 
far as James himself is concerned. That object was to 
placate the colored element which is clamoring for 
office. Mr. Poindexter, in his joy at receiving a nomi- 
nation, evidently forgets that his election is out of the 
question. By and by he will appreciate the thinness 
of his honors." 7 And this must have been true, judg- 
ing from the vote on October 14, when the Democratic 
candid;i te received 3,684 votes and Poindexter, the 
Republican candidate, received 1,794 votes, in spite of 
the fact that Columbus was decidedly a Republican 
city. 8 

Columbus Dispatch, August 8 and 23, 1873. 

7 Columbus Dispatch, September 8, 1873. 

8 Columbus Dispatch, October 15, 1873. 



SOCIAL STATUS SINCE 1850 109 

In the year 1873 the Board of Education of Co- 
lumbus decided to admit the son of the colored school 
principal into the white high school. During the year 
the boys of the school met to organize a cadet corps, 
and the colored boy was among them. When the time 
came for them to go forward and sign the roll of mem- 
bership, the colored boy stepped up also. This action 
was greeted with a storm of hisses and stamping on 
the floor, indulged in by almost all the boys present. 
The colored boy signed his name nevertheless and 
sat down, but the sensation that he had stirred up did 
not settle down so soon, not, indeed, until the name 
was erased from the roll, and the white boys' feeling of 
superiority was vindicated. This feeling must have 
been shared in by their elders, judging from the fol- 
lowing in The Dispatch the next day: "The colored 
youth who was urged by his less intelligent elders to 
push himself forward as a member of a new organiza- 
tion of cadets in this city has had the good sense to 
withdraw his name. The colored people are develop- 
ing little intelligence in endeavoring to intrude them- 
selves into all sorts of society where they are unwel- 
come guests, and where evidently they labor under dis- 
tinctions that may be odious, but that are, neverthe- 
less, common to both races. A colored organization of 
cadets would permit no 'white trash' in the parade, 
and why should the rule be reversed merely to estab^ 
lish a buncombe political idea." 10 

An incident occurred in Columbus in 1873 which 
almost precipitated a clash between the two races 
and served to bring out a strong expression of race 
prejudice. A colored man presented parquet tickets 
at the door of the Athenenm theater for admission. 
The doorkeeper told him that it was an inflexible rule 
of the management not to sell tickets for this part of 
the house to colored people, and therefore he could 

8 Columbus Dispatch, October 15, 1873. 
10 Columbus Dispatch, January 20, 1874. 



no THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

not let him enter. He took the ticket to the office, 
had it redeemed, and offered the money to the negro, 
who refused it. The latter then went away and meet- 
ing the doorkeeper again about the second day after 
this he fell upon him and beat him in a terrible man- 
ner. Much indignation was expressed against the 
colored race, and the colored people called a mass 
meeting and appointed a committee to investigate the 
whole matter. The newspapers also began a little in- 
vestigation of the feeling against the blacks, and these 
are some of the things they found : Not only were the 
majority of the white citizens in favor of the black 
people being excluded from certain sections of the 
theater, but their repugnance to the colored people 
was so strong that they kept them out of the white 
schools, out of Trinity Episcopal church, and colored 
children were debarred from the Hannah Neil Mis- 
sion, a large charitable institution for homeless waifs. 
The Dispatch in an editorial said: "Universal equali- 
ty is a myth. There are not only distinctions in race 
and color, but in politics, religion, business and so- 
ciety, and always will be. It is a fact that there is a 
large class of people who will say that the colored peo- 
ple ought to be admitted to the parquet of a theatre, 
but few of them want to sit by him." 11 

An attempt was made in the city council Decem- 
ber 16 to pass an ordinance forbidding managers to 
exclude colored people from any part of a theatre, but 
it failed to pass by a vote of 9 to 10. 12 

The colored people met again December IT to hear 
the report of the committee appointed at their last 
meeting to investigate the affair. The committee in 
its report took the broad ground that the manager, in 
order to preserve his business, was compelled by pub- 
lic prejudice to reserve a part of the house for white 
people and was therefore more deserving of pity than 

11 Columbus Dispatch, December 5 and 18, 1873. 
x * Columbus Dispatch, December 16, 1873. 



SOCIAL STATUS SINCE 1850 m 

censure. The}- said that the manager had told them 
tli.it many of their Republican friends who pretended 
such great interest in them were among those who 
had expressed themselves privately to him as being op- 
posed to the blacks sitting in the parquet. 

The committee thought that it would be wise for 
colored men to keep out of places where they were not 
wanted. "In conclusion, your committee gives it as 
their opinion that while colored men's duty to their 
country, and to themselves and their children, require 
a manly resistance, at whatever cost, to every en- 
croachment upon their rights as citizens, which inflict 
real injury, such as obstructing their rights of travel 
on railroads and steamboats, denying them suitable 
accommodations at places of public entertainment, or 
in the asylums of the State or poor-houses which are 
sustained by public tax, it is unwise to worry at an ex- 
clusion from amusements." 13 

The report was thoroughly discussed, condemned 
by some and approved by others, and in speeches on 
the subject these facts were brought out: 1. The ne- 
groes were practising the same thing that the mana- 
ger of the theater was, in that many of them had bar- 
ber shops in which they catered to the white trade only 
and refused to do work for their own race out of fear 
of losing the white men's trade. 2. The action of the 
Hannah Neil Mission in excluding colored children 
was in harmony with the view of all the Protestant 
churches, and the only way in which they might bet- 
ter themselves in this regard was to affiliate with the 
( 'atholic Church. 3. Their being excluded from plac- 
es of amusement was a very little thing in comparison 
with their being excluded so generally from railroad 
cars, hotels, schools, and charitable institutions. These 
were the things to be striven for. 

Having now seen the ways in which prejudice as- 
serted itself in one of the largest cities of the State, let 

11 Columbus Dispatch, December 18, 1873. 



II2 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

us turn our attention to one of the smaller cities of 
the southern part of the State, and we shall find a pic- 
ture different in details only. We are indebted for the 
following description of conditions in Waverly, the 
county seat of Pike county, to Henry Howe, author of 

Historical Collections of Ohio : 

"Waverly, having a population of 2,000, does not 
harbor a single negro within her borders. When Wa- 
verly was still in its swaddling clothes, there was a 
'yellow nigger' named Love living on the outskirts 
of the town. He was a low-minded, impudent, vicious 
fellow, very insulting, and made enemies on every 
hand. His conduct finally became so objectionable 
that a lot of the better class of citizens got together 
one night, made a descent upon his cabin, drove him 
out and stoned him a long way in his flight toward 
Sharonville. He never dared to come back. 

"There was a splendid fellow, a darkey named 
Dennis Hill, who settled at Piketon and established 
a tanning business, who was almost harassed to death 
by the negro-haters. He finally left this section and 
went to Michigan, where he grew rich. 

"Dr. William Blackstone was a strong exception 
to the general rule. He was a friend of the negro, their 
champion, and the prejudiced whites accused the doc- 
tor of 'encouraging the d d niggers to be impudent 

and sassy to us.' Opposed to Blackstone was a strong 
family of Burkes, and a number of the Downings, who 
thought that the only correct way to treat a negro was 
to kill him. This was their doctrine, and they pro- 
claimed it, with much bravado, on all occasions. 

"A lot of Virginia negroes settled up on Pee Pee 
creek, in the neighborhood of the Burkes and the 
Downings. Some of them prospered nicely, and this 
enraged their while neighbors. Tim Downing was the 
leader of the gang that made almost constant war on 
these negroes. Downing's crowd got to burning the 



SOCIAL STATUS SINCE 1850 113 

hay and wheat of the colored farmers, harrassing ..heir 
stock, interfering in their private business, and doing 
everything in their power to make life absolutely mis- 
erable to the colored people. 

"One night they organized a big raid into the col- 
ored settlement, with the avowed purpose of 'clearing 
out the whole nest of d d niggers.' They went ful- 
ly armed, and didn't propose to stop short of doing a 
little killing and burning. One of the first cabins they 
surrounded was that of an especially hated colored 
man. They opened fire upon it, hoping to drive the 
negro out. But the darkey, — an honest, peaceable fel- 
low, — wasn't to be easily frightened. He, too, had a 
gun, and taking a safe position near one of the win- 
dows of his cabin, he blazed away into the darkness 
in the direction from which the shots had come. A 
wild cry of pain followed his shot. The buck shot 
from his gun pluuged into the right leg of Tim Down- 
ing's brother, cutting an artery. Downing fell, but 
he was picked up and carried to the home of Bill 
Burke. The crowd abandoned the attack after Down- 
ing's fall, and followed him to Burke's house. There 
Downing bled to death. A coroner's jury was empan- 
elled, and the gang of whites to which Downing be- 
longed surrounded the house in which the jury was in 
session, and threatened it with all sorts of vengeance 
if it did not return a verdict expressing the belief that 
Downing had been murdered by the negro. But their 
threats didn't procure the desired verdict. 

"The morning after the fatal raid, the Downings, 
Burkes and their friends, armed themselves and 
marched to the negro's cabin. They lay in wait there 
until the darkey's son, a nice young fellow, came out 
of the cabin. They opened fire on him, and one of the 
ballets struck him in the head, fracturing his skull. 
^Yhen the young man fell the crowd broke and ran. 
The wounded negro lingered quite a long while, suf- 
fering most frightfully, and finally died. No one was 



H 4 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

ever punished for this crime. After these two trage- 
dies the negro moved away. 

"Tim Downing had a brother, Taylor, living up 
near Sharonville, and this man concluded that he had 
to have 'an eye for an eye,' to avenge his brother's 
death. One morning, just after Downing's death, he 
was going through the woods with his gun on his 
shoulder, and came upon a negro chopping rails. He 
told the darkey to make his peace with God, as he was 
going to kill him right there. The darkey knew that 
Downing meant what he said, and quick as a squirrel's 
jump he made a dash at Downing with his ax, striking 
him full on the side of the face and shattering his jaw 
in the most frightful fashion. Downing lived, but he 
was horribly marked for life. The negro was arrested 
and tried, but was acquitted. This only enraged the 
white gang more, and they made life in this neighbor- 
hood entirely too hot for the negro. It was under 
such circumstances as these that the bitter anti-negro 
feeling at Waverly had its origin. . This race hatred 
was fostered and extended until even moderate-think- 
ing people, on any other subject, came to believe that 
they couldn't stand the presence of a negro in Waver- 
ly..- 1 

We have seen in this description of the feeling in 
Waverly that it was necessary to shed blood in order 
to appease this feeling of race hatred. There are other 
instances of the shedding of blood in the State of Ohio 
to satisfy this same feeling. In many cases have the 
laws of the State been set at naught by the people, 
who, to punish the negro for his crimes, have proceed- 
ed to lynchings and riots. Since there is no question 
that white people have committed crimes just as hein- 
ous before the law and yet none of that class, so far 
as I have been able to find, have been lynched in the 

14 Henry Howe — Historical Collections of Ohio, 89. 
This place to this day, 1912, prides itself on the fact that no 
negro is permitted to live in the town. 



SOCIAL STATUS SINCE 1850 n 5 

State, in each one of the following lynchings and riots 
there will be apparent that feeling of bitterness which 
is so peculiarly felt toward the negro by the white 
man. 

November 22, 185G, according to N. W. Evans in 
his History of Adams County, a negro committed an 
outrage on a white woman of Manchester, Adams' 
county, while her husband was absent. The negro was 
promptly arrested and jailed. Over a hundred of 
the best men of the town mounted horses, rode to the 
county seat, broke into the jail, took the negro out and 
across to the Kentucky shore of the Ohio river and 
there hanged him. 15 

And in the same county, January 10, 1894, a col- 
ored boy was lynched by a mob of enraged citizens for 
murdering an old couple, Luther Rhine and wife. 10 

At Galion, Crawford county, in the northern part 
of the State, a colored man, Frank Fisher, was lynch- 
ed May 1, 1882, in broad daylight for having ravished 
a young white girl. His body was shot full of bullets 
and left hanging by the roadside on the outskirts of 
the town. 17 

October 17, 1894, there was a riot at Washington 
Court House, Fayette county, and a negro was lynch- 
ed, in spite of the militia sent to protect him. 18 

In New Richmond, Clermont county, in 1895, an 
old gentleman, who was a banker and noted for his 
friendship to the colored people, stopped a negro on 
the street one day and asked him why ho was not 
working. The negro became enraged and choked the 
man to death on the spot. The business men of the 
town quietly took the negro and hung him to a I roe in 
the center of the town, the whole affair, murder, cap- 

"History of Adams County— X. \Y. Evans and E. B. Stivers, 

444- 

10 Ibid, 393- 
Cleveland Leader, May 2, 1882. 
Ohio State Journal, October 18, 1894. 



18 



„6 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

ture, and execution, occupying less than two hours' 
time. 19 

June 4, 1897, there occurred at Urbana, the coun- 
ty seat of Champaign county, the lynching of Click 
Mitchell for assault on an old woman. He had plead- 
ed guilty and had been sentenced by the court to the 
penitentiary for twenty years, the full limit of the 
law. This did not satisfy the people, and on June 2 
a mob began to assemble, and each attack on the jail 
was resisted by the local militia company. On the 3rd 
the mob grew larger, and a rush on the jail was follow- 
ed by a killing. Other militia came from Springfield, 
but they were spirited away, and a final rush on the 
jail on the morning of the 4th enabled the mob to se- 
cure its victim. He was dead before he was hanged 
to a tree in the court house yard. 20 

The Puritan Western Keserve, the stronghold of 
pro-negro feeling, was the scene in 1900 of the blood- 
iest riot over a negro that the State has ever witnessed. 
The negro had ravished a twelve-year old white girl. 
He was captured by the police and lodged in jail. A 
mob soon formed and attacked the jail. The militia 
was called for, and the policemen of the city stood to 
their duty. The mob kept growing larger and larger, 
and the militia kept coming in until it looked as if 
real civil war was at hand. Many attacks were made 
on the jail, but finally the negro was spirited away 
and taken by special train to Cleveland, where he was 
lodged in jail. The trouble continued in Akron until 
several lives were lost and many persons were wound- 
ed. 21 

While the Akron riot is the bloodiest in the his- 
tory of the State, the Springfield riots of 1904 .and 
1906 are the most notorious for the display of race 

10 Ohio State Journal, July, 1895. 

20 Columbus Dispatch, March 8, 1904. 

"As a result of this bloody riot, there is intense bitterness to 
this day in Akron between the police and the citizens. The negro 
is in the Ohio penitentiary. 



SOCIAL STATUS SINCE 1850 117 

prejudice. A negro on March 6, 1904, shot a police- 
man. He was arrested and placed in the county jail. 
On Monday noon, March 7, the policeman died. From 
the time of the shooting, there was talk of lynching 
which grew decidedly strong after the death of the po- 
liceman. That night the mob formed, took the negro 
from the jail, hung him to a telephone post at the main 
business corner and then filled his body with bullets. 
The mob, not yet satisfied, then proceeded to the main 
negro district of the city, the Levee, which was a block 
of tenements about three hudred feet long, and this 
they burnt to the ground. The Adjutant General of 
the State, who had command of the militia on this oc- 
casion, says in his report: "It is my belief that both 
Police and Fire Departments of the city were not only 
ia sympathy with the intent of the mob to burn this 
district, but in a measure aided the movement by dila- 
tory action." 2 -' 

In less than two years Springfield was again the 
scene of a race riot. February 27, 1906, a brakeman 
of the Big Four railroad was shot by two negroes in 
the switching yards at Springfield. The negroes were 
arrested the same day and confined in the county jail, 
but were shortly afterward secretly removed to the 
county jail at Dayton. Early in the evening a mob 
formed and threatened the jail. Finding that the ne- 
gro had been taken away, the mob proceeded to the 
"Jungles," another negro district, where they demol- 
ished several dwellings and a saloon and set fire to the 
rest of the buildings, many of which were destroyed. 23 

We have seen now the many violent outbreaks of 
race prejudice in which the people took the law into 
their own hands. Nominally the lives of negroes have 
been under the same protection of law as those of the 

22 Adjutant General's Report, 1904, 434. 

23 In my opinion, after a personal investigation in 1908, this town 
will be the scene of a yet worse riot in the not distant future, when- 
ever the negro oversteps his bounds again and arouses the slumber- 
ing enmity of his white neighbors. 



n8 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

white people- Actually it has not been so. We have 
seen 24 that the negro legally is privileged to enjoy equal 
rights with the white man in the way of securing ac- 
commodations at hotels, restaurants, theatres, and all 
such public places. We shall see now how the people 
of the State take this law also into their own hands, 
deny the negro equal accommodations, and, when 
brought before the court, succeed in almost every in- 
stance in escaping penalty. The law granting equal 
rights was passed in 1884. The following is a brief 
account of the cases wherein the law was violated com- 
ing before the courts since that time : 

In Cincinnati, March 3, 1887, a negro entered a 
restaurant and asked the proprietor for his dinner; 
he was refused and told that colored people were 
not served there. He then went to another restaurant, 
where he was again refused for the same reason as at 
the first. At this second place, however, he was told 
that if he insisted they would feed him, but he would 
have to go into the cellar to eat. This he refused to 
do. He then brought suit for damages against both 
firms for violation of the equal rights act,, and the 
common pleas court and, later, the circuit court, de- 
cided that there was not sufficient cause for action, 
"as the business of defendants was one which existed 
independent of permission of public authority, and 
they could supply or refuse to supply to any person 
they pleased." 25 

Ten years later, 1800, a negro brought suit against 
the Fountain Square Theatre company of Cincinnati 
tor refusing to sell him a ticket to the parquet section 
of (lie theatre on account of his color. The lower court 
jillowed the negro f 1200.00 damages. The case was ap- 
pealed to the circuit court, and the decision was re- 
versed, on the technicality that the negro did not show 

** Chapter VT. 

25 John W. Hargo vs. Meyers and Ludecke; John IV. Hargo vs. 
Harff and Cramer, Ohio Circuit Court Reports, IV, 275-276. 



SOCIAL STATUS SINCE 1850 119 

that the company had instructed the ticket agent to 
refuse tickets to members of his race. The following 
statement closes the decision of the court, "Whether 
allegation and proof that the ticket agent was given 
authority to exercise his own discretion in selling or 
refusing to sell tickets to persons applying therefor 
would be sufficient to charge the principal with lia- 
bility for such act as that complained of, we do not de- 
cide." 26 

December 19, 1899, the Supreme Court of the 
State handed down an important decision in the case 
of a negro who was charged thirty cents for a drink 
of liquor in a saloon of Akron, Ohio, for which same 
drink all white men were compelled to pay but fifteen 
cents. The case first came up before the common pleas 
court, where it was dismissed on the ground "that 
there was no cause for action." It was then appealed 
to the circuit court, which affirmed the action of the 
lower court. Then, being carried to the highest trib- 
unal of the State, the Supreme Court, it there met the 
same fate. 27 

In 1901 another action was before the court, for 
denying equal rights to the negro, and this time the 
discrimination was found in Cleveland, the very cen- 
ter of the Western Reserve. A negro was refused the 
privilege of bowling in one of the public parks. He 
brought suit against the owner of the bowling alley, 
and the common pleas court decided that "there was 
no cause for action." It was appealed to the circuit 
court, and this court referred it back to the lower 
court for further consideration. 28 

In the city of Xenia, in 1906, we find the son of a 
colored lawyer entering a restaurant on purpose to be 

28 M. C. Anderson vs. James W . Rawlings, Ohio Circuit Court 
Decisions, X, 112-113. 

27 Keller vs. Koerber et al, Ohio State Reports, LXI, 388-389. 

29 1 was unable to learn the final result. 

Lewis E. Johnson vs. Humphrey Pop Corn Co., Ohio Circuits 

XXIV, 135-136. 



I20 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

refused his dinner, in order that his father might have 
a chance to give the law of 1884 one more test before 
the courts. He was refused, and the father brought 
suit. In the local court he was given f 50.00 damages. 
The restaurant owner carried the the case to the Su- 
preme Court, which reversed the verdict of the lower 
court on the ground that there had not been sufficient 
harm done to warrant the action. 20 

When we look back over these court decisions and 
see the failures of the colored people to get damages, 
as provided in the equal rights law of the State, see the 
amount of litigation necessary, and consider how un- 
able the negroes generally are to bear the expense of 
going to law, there can be but one conclusion arrived 
at ; and that is that equal rights in Ohio for blacks and 
the whites is a myth. 

If we now look back over a period of more than 
a century covered by this book we must see that there 
has ever been the strongest antipathy manifested to- 
ward the colored people by the white people of the 
State of Ohio. One must also see that this feeling is 
not groAving less as the years go by. My own belief is 
that it is increasing steadily, especially during the 
last twenty years. This conclusion is based upon the 
facts herein stated, together with the study of present 
day conditions as set forth in Part II. 

20 The facts of this case I learned personally from the restaurant 
owner and from the lips of many blacks and whites in the town. 




o-in 



PART II. 



PRESENT-DAY CONDITIONS 



Chapter I — Cincinnati. 

The cities and towns of Ohio are in no essential 
regard different in their social and industrial consti- 
tution from corresponding types of communities of 
other great States in the North. The adjustment of 
the white and negro elements in the population varies 
from place to place, but the chief factor determining 
the variance is not latitude or longitude but the pro- 
portion of negroes in the population. The word negro 
is here used synonymously with "colored person," as 
is customary in American speech, to designate blacks, 
mulattoes, quadroons, octoroons — all persons in short 
who have an appreciable trace of negro blood in their 
ancestry. The investigation of which the following 
description is the result was made in the summers of 
1908 and 1909. My method was in visiting each com- 
munity described to interview scores or hundreds of 
persons of both races and of all walks of life. On ar- 
riving at each place I looked up and talked with first 
of all the colored physicians, lawyers, preachers and 
any other leading colored citizens who could be found. 
They were generally disposed to discuss affairs quite 
freely. I then talked with negro laborers not neglect- 
ing the negro idlers ; and then interrogated white peo- 
ple of all classes regarding their observations and 
opinions of the negroes. The result shows that in 
Ohio the racial adjustments are no more determined 
by law than they are in typical Southern States. 
Many statutes in the law books are dead letters in 

« 

practice. The adjustments are the product of social 
custom, largely regardless of the law. The negroes 
are permitted to vote it is true; but other legal pro- 
visions intended to establish racial equality are either 
observed or ignored according as the white element in 
the several communities may determine. 

In Cincinnati no colored man can attend the 



126 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

Ohio Medical College, which is a branch of the Uni- 
versity of Cincinnati, an institution supported by 
public taxation, nor can he enter the Eclectic Medical 
School. He can procure medical education at no in- 
stitution in the city. This is not according to law but 
according to public will- The officers of the several 
institutions may be perfectly willing to admit negroes, 
but the general opposition of the student bodies and 
some members of the faculties operates to their effect- 
ual exclusion. If a negro physician who has secured 
training elsewhere establishes himself for practice in 
Cincinnati, no matter what his efficiency may be, he 
is not allowed to operate in the large City Hospital, 
a public institution. He is debarred from the Seton 
Hospital, on West Sixth street, and, in fact, from all 
hospitals save two small charity institutions. Color- 
ed people, received with reluctance into segregated 
wards in the City Hospital, are refused the privilege 
of having a physician of their own race attend them." 4 

Eecently there came up the question of having 
colored men in the Health Department. The Board of 
Public Service, which, of course, is made up of white 
men, decided that it would be unwise, because the col- 
ored sanitary officers would be compelled to call at the 
houses of white men during the latter's absence, and 
their wives would be made subject to insult in having 
to accept orders from colored men. 

There are no negroes to be found in the city fire 
department, which employs hundreds of men, all of 
course, paid from public taxation. The reason given 
for their absence is that white firemen will not work 
with them, as they would be compelled under the 
present plan of conducting the department to eat and 
sleep alongside of them. 

The officers controlling the Municipal Bath 
House now forbid all colored people to bathe there. 

* The information in this paragraph was obtained from three 
mingly well-informed colored physicians. 



CINCINNATI 



127 



The privilege was granted for a short time recently, 
under Democratic administration, but the house so 
quickly became practically a colored institution that 
the reform party had to withdraw the privilege. 

All the popular parks, such as Chester, The La- 
goon and Coney Island, exclude the negroes. Some 
of them have one "nigger day" each year, when the 
colored people are allowed to pass the gates which are 
forbidden them the rest of the year. Some negroes 
are employed as waiters and porters at Coney Island, 
a leading park, six miles up the Ohio river. These 
are compelled to ride on the deck of the steamboat 
going and coming. 

Hotels, restaurants, eating and drinking places, 
almost universally are closed to all people in w r hom 
any negro strain can be detected. A colored man of 
education, and of great prominence among his people, 
told me that his wife was white enough to run the 
gauntlet, but that he was not, and that often when 
they happened to be down in the city at the noon hour 
he would send her into a white restaurant for her din- 
ner, while he would stand on the curb and wait for 
her, or perhaps go to some cheap place for a "hand 
out," which he generally had to take outside before 
eating- The same man told me that if he wanted a 
glass of beer he had to go to some out-of-the-way place 
or low "dive" for it. The Bartenders' Union has pass- 
ed a resolution forbidding its members to w r ait on 
colored persons, and they obey the prohibition. On 
Fifth street, between Central avenue and Broadway, 
a distance of a dozen blocks, a colored man cannot en- 
ter a single saloon to buy a drink or a ham sandwich. 
W. P. Dabney, a colored man of education and of rec- 
ognized ability in music and other arts, theAssistant 
Paymaster of Cincinnati, handling tens of thousands 
of dollars annually, and paying it out to the Mayor, 
Chief of Police, and all other city employees, person- 
ally told me of the following experience : He and an- 



128 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

other prominent musician had, at much pains and 
with some financial risk, secured a famous pupil of 
Rubenstein, an Italian, to give a concert in Cincinnati. 
After the concert was over the performer asked the 
committee to go to a saloon and have a drink with 
him. They all entered the saloon, the party consisting 
of the Italian musician, another foreigner, and the col- 
ored man, Mr. Dabney. The conversation at the mo- 
ment happened to be about America, and the Italian 
was congratulating his companions upon their privi- 
lege of living in this land of the free. They sat down 
at a table and called for something to drink. The bar- 
tender could see but two at the table, and those the 
foreigners. The one real American, though he was 
the trusted employee of a great city, was beneath the 
notice of the bartender. 

At the Sinton Hotel, where Mr. Taft made his 
campaign headquarters in 1908, the colored man is 
not welcome even in the lobby. No matter how prom- 
inent he is, if he desires to see a white man on one of 
the upper floors, he must take the freight elevator, 
the "Jim Crow" compartment- 

The Pullman company refuses to sell berths to 
colored people going South. Under stress, they will 
offer to put them in the drawing room, which costs 
more than they can afford to pay, but which segregates 
them from the whites. Trains leaving Cincinnati for 
the South have their "Jim Crow" coaches, into which 
the colored people are asked to go. If they do not go 
willingly they are compelled to do so on reaching the 
Kentucky side of the Ohio river. 

The Y. M. C. A. refuses them either active or asso- 
ciate membership. Recently some young colored men 
established a Y. M. C. A. on Walnut Hills, a prominent 
suburb of the city. The Avhite Y. M. C. A. rose in 
wrath at this defilement of their name, and caused 
the colored organization to change its name to the Y- 
B.(oys) C. A. 



CINCINNATI 129 

The Ohio Mechanics' Institute, probably the larg- 
est school of its kind in Ohio, has recently decided to 
deny admission to negroes. 

In the Children's Home, on Ninth street, another 
large public institution, colored children are permit- 
ted to stay but twenty-four hours, after which they 
are sent to the Colored Orphans' Asylum. The Au- 
tomobile Club of America some time ago decided to 
give orphans resident in cities where there are branch- 
es of the association, a free trip to the country annu- 
ally. The Cincinnati branch the first year forgot, as 
they said, the colored children. The next year, after a 
very heated public discussion of the matter, it was de- 
cided that there were not enough colored chauffeurs, 
so they could not take them. 

Theatres universally exclude the negroes or at the 
best give them gallery seats, and these sometimes at 
advanced prices. The large city work-house, the re- 
formatories, city and county prisons, and hospitals, 
separate white and black as much as they possibly can. 
Negroes can neither rent nor buy houses in re- 
spectable sections of the city without paying exhor- 
bitant prices. If a negro does succeed in buying a 
desirable piece of property, his white neighbors will 
endeavor by all possible means to get him out of it. 
Sometimes they even threaten his life, but more often 
they buy him out, generally paying him considerably 
more than the property cost him. This is expensive 
for the white men. Many negroes are taking advan- 
tage of this pride to better their financial condition, 
and many more would follow the plan if they had 
the capital. The following extract from a conversa- 
tion with a colored preacher in one of the suburbs of 
Cincinnati will illustrate the negro's attitude and the 
methods : 'If I had a little money saved I would make 
the white folks pay for their prejudice. I would have 
some 'poor white trash' buy a lot in a fashionable 
neighborhood for me, and then I would declare my 



i 3 o THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

ownership and intention to build. Immediately I 
would get many offers to buy, and when I could sell at 
a good profit I would let it go, and then I would buy 
another piece and so continue. I could make a fine 
living in that way, far better than I can in the minis- 
try, but I haven't the money to start with.' 

In St. James place, a fashionable residence dis- 
trict of Cincinnati, there lives a colored man of much 
prominence, being connected with a well known pub- 
lishing house. The white neighbors have offered him 
large inducements to sell, but he, not being of the 
type represented above by the colored preacher, has 
refused all overtures and insists upon his rights. 

The colored man in earning his living is hampered 
on every side by race prejudice. The labor unions as 
a whole do not want him and will not have him, and 
their members will not work by his side. The result 
of this is that he is practically debarred from all me- 
chanical pursuits requiring skill. He can join the hod 
carriers' union, and this is due to the fact that not 
enough white men can be found to do the work. The 
bricklayers' union, the painters', the carpenters' the 
lathers', the plumbers', the barbers', the bartenders', 
the printers' unions, and many others refuse admis- 
sion to negroes. The white man cannot employ them 
in any skilled work, if he has so large an undertaking 
that he has to employ white men with them. The 
white men will not work with negroes, so if there are 
not enough colored people trained to do the work, 
the result is that no matter how free the white employ- 
er himself is from prejudice, his hands are tied; he 
must of necessity, generally speaking, refuse to em- 
ploy the colored man in any skilled capacity. Many 
colored men who had come from the South told me 
that there was no such condition in the South; that 
if a colored man became capable of laying brick or 
doing carpentry work or any other skilled work, he 



CINCINNATI I3I 

was as freely employed in it by whites as the white 
laborers themselves were. 

Besides their being debarred from skilled labor, 
negroes are not employed as stenographers, bookkeep- 
ers or offce men in any capacity except that of janitor. 
Not one is employed as teacher in the public schools, 
none are employed as clerks in stores or factories. 

The post office work is open to negroes because of 
its being under civil service rules, and they have 
shown the ability to get a foothold there. In the Cin- 
cinnati Post Office twelve are employed as clerks and 
twenty-eight as carriers, making a total of forty out 
of a grand total of seven hundred employees, or about 
5 per cent, which is the per cent of colored people in 
the city to the total population- In the police depart- 
ment there are twelve colored patrolmen out of a to- 
tal of six hundred and ten, which is one-half their quo- 
ta according to population. They get these places as 
policemen solely as the price paid by the politicians 
for the colored vote. 

The learned professions, the law, the ministry 
and medicine, are open to them, but the few who are 
brave enough to attempt these find that they can hard- 
ly make an honest living. The white people, of course, 
will not employ them, and, strange to say, their color- 
ed brothers are almost as much against them, but for 
different reasons, one of which is jealousy 5 and the 
other lack of confidence. They will not respect negro 
advice, but will take the white man's in preference, 
having learned during their days of slavery to look 
up to the white man. 

What nre the causes of this strong prejudice in 
the city of Cincinnati? In general they are the same 
as are found in other cities of the State, and they are 
as follows : 

(1) Large numbers of ignorant colored people 

6 A very strong race trait, as many of them themselves told the 
writer during the investigation. 



132 



THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 



are coming in from the South, seeking the land of 
the free, where they can have 'their rights/ many of 
whom mistake liberty for license. 

(2) When a negro commits a crime the news- 
papers always emphasize his race connection by such 
headlines as "A Big Black Burly Brute of a Negro" 
does such and such, and the whole race gets a share 
of the blame; while if the crime is committed by a 
white man, race is not mentioned, and the individual 
gets the blame. 

(3) The mixing of the lower classes of the two 
races causes jealousy and ill feeling in these very 
classes, and much revulson of feeling and fear in the 
higher classes. 

(4) Cincinnati has always catered to the South- 
ern trade and still does ; therefore she adopts much of 
the South's attitude toward the negroes. 

(5) An unusually large part of Cincinnati's 
population has been in the South for a time and then 
returned to the North. It is almost the universal ob- 
servation that such people, after their return, forever 
think less of the negro. 

(6) The white people constantly complain of 
not being able to depend upon the negroes; they say 
that they are shiftless, careless, and too prone to ap- 
propriate little things belonging to other people. 

(7) The negroes more and more are entering 
politics as negroes, and demanding rewards for the 
negroes, in the way of positions and public offices. 
In this they are meeting with strong opposition and 
much secret resentment. 

(8) The fact that so many negroes appear in the 
] >ol ice courts and prisons hurts their cause greatly. 
According to the report of the Chief of Police of Cin- 
cinnati for the year 1905, there were 12,138 white peo- 
ple arrested and 3,107 colored. According to the cen- 
sus of 1900 there were 325,000 people in the city and 
14,482 were colored. By a little comparison of these 



CINCINNATI I33 

figures we see that in proportion to their respective 
populations there were five colored people arrested to 
one white. If the white people had committed as many 
criminal offenses as the colored, the police would have 
made the enormous number of 68,345 arrests that one 
year. In 190G there were 11,284 arrests of white peo- 
ple and 2,658 of colored. There were remaining in the 
House of Refuge, the city prison for young people, on 
December 31, 1907, 238 white children and 95 color- 
ed. 7 From the annual report of the Cincinnati work- 
house for 1907 we learn that there were 2,414 white 
prisoners and 949 colored. About the same propor- 
tion has obtained for several years past. From 
;i study of these figures one must conclude that in re- 
cent years, and in this one city, at least, the criminal- 
ity of the negroes has been fully five times as great 
as that of the whites. 

Report of Chief of Police for 1906. 

7 Annual Report of House of Refuge for 1907. 



CHAPTER II. 

DAYTON. 

Dayton is a city of approximately 100,000 people 
and lies about sixty miles north of Cincinnati. It 
contains in round numbers 5,000 colored people. 

A colored man by the name of Thomas M. Jones 
told me of the following incident in which he had 
but lately figured: Seeing in the window of a well 
known clothing store, a pair of trousers that he want- 
ed, he went in to buy them. The clerk first told him 
that he couldn't afford them, naming a high price. 
The colored man produced the money, and then the 
clerk said the trousers would not fit him. When the 
colored man said that he was willing to run the risk 
of their fitting, and that he would not ask even for the 
privilege of trying them on, the clerk directly told him 
that he could not sell him under any consideration, 
as it was an absolute rule of the house to sell nothing 
to negroes. 

In all of my investigations of conditions through- 
out Ohio, I had found nothing quite so radical as this, 
so I determined to verify it beyond a doubt- I went to 
the store, and from one of the men connected with it 
got the following statements : "We do not sell to col- 
ored people at all and have not done so since we began 
business three years ago. We have freely advertised 
the fact and find it good business policy to do so. You 
know yourself that you wouldn't want to try on a suit 
after a dirty nigger had tried it on, any more than you 
would want to get into a barber's chair after a nigger 
had just been shaved in it, We haven't anything 
; i gainst the colored people and in fact employ one of 
them as janitor, but business is business." 

This store, with this policy as one of its most ad- 
vertised features, has prospered, until today it is 
about the leading clothing store of the city. And this 



DAYTON I35 

is not the only store that is concerned with the color of 
its customers. There is a ladies' cloak store that 
draws the line sharply at colored folk. A few 
years ago the city entertained, or rather the colored 
people held, a large convention, and there were hun- 
dreds of colored delegates present from many States. 
One of these, a woman, tried to buy a cloak in the 
above mentioned establishment and was refused. She 
wrote a long letter inprotest, which was published in 
The Dayton Journal. It received scant notice, except 
from the colored people themselves. 

As another instance of what is constantly oc- 
curring, a colored man went into a drug-store to buy 
a drink at the soda fountain and was told that he 
would be served only on condition that he would go 
out on the side-walk to drink it. The narrator of this 
incident remarked that this was his introduction to 
the "equal rights" of the North.. The event occurred 
soon after his arrival from the South, where he had 
heard much sentiment about the land "where the 
nigga is sure enough a man." After his introduction 
to the realities of the way the Ohio white man feels 
towards his dark-skinned brother, he gets acquainted 
rapidly. A white man had bought a bottle of beer at 
a saloon and later sent the bottle back by this colored 
man for redemption. The saloon-keeper refused to 
receive it from his hands- At another time in the 
same saloon he tried to buy a loaf of bread, but was 
refused. He went into another saloon and asked for 
a glass of beer; no one heard him; he asked again; 
every one in the place looked at him, but said nothing. 
Finally he had to get up and walk out, "feeling like 
a whipped dog," as he expressed it. At another time 
he went to a soda-fountain and asked for a drink. 
They "did not have any" was the answer, all hough a 
white man was sitting at the counter drinking. Again 
he and another colored man went into a small res- 
taurant on the west side of Dayton and ordered a 



136 



THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 



lunch, including berry pie. The woman who owned 
the place got the lunch and started to do it up in pa- 
per—the dripping pie and all. They told her that they 
wanted to eat it there. The woman resentfully told 
them she did not serve colored people in her restau- 
rant, They then got up and started out without the 
lunch. The woman called her husband and both tried 
to compel the negroes to pay for the lunch, on the plea 
that they had ordered it and knew that they could not 
expect to eat it in a white restaurant. 

Events similar to the above are commonplace in 
the lives of negroes of Dayton and are the portion of 
all classes of them. The colored man who went 
through these particular experiences was a hardwork- 
ing man, who wanted to do right and to be well 
thought of, as his employer informed me; yet, as he 
said, if he wanted anything to eat or drink, he had to 
go to some low-down place for it, or go without it. 

Hotels, restaurants, soda-fountain establish- 
ments, saloons and all places of this nature are closed 
to the negro, in spite of the fact that the State law 
forbids this distinction. The woman managing the 
dining-room in the Johnston department store, for 
example, told me that she had had but one colored 
woman come in to be served- Immediately upon 
her entrance, there was an uproar among the white 
waitresses and the customers. The manager stepped 
up and told her that she could not serve her. The 
woman thereupon left and no more was ever heard 
from her. 

In all kinds of stores of the better grade negroes 
are treated in such a way as plainly to show them that 
their custom is not wanted. Even when a negro goes 
to market to buy, he does not get his turn, but has to 
wait till all white customers are waited on. When he 
goes to the theater, he can as in Cincinnati buy a 
sent only in certain sections of the house, generally in 
the gallery, or "nigger heaven," as it is sometimes 



DAYTON i 37 

called. When be happens to go into one of the white 
churches his treatment is against all teachings of the 
Christian religion. 

It is almost impossible for him to rent or to buy 
a house in a desirable section of the city. He must go 
to the west side where the negroes are colonized. 
Recently a colored man succeeded in buying a home 
in one of the white wards. He woke up a few morn- 
ings later to find a note on his door, warning him 
to leave within five days. He appealed to the authori- 
ties for protection and, as he was a colored man of un- 
usual character, the protection was granted, and he 
held his home. 

Let us now look at the "bread and butter'' prob- 
lems of the colored man's life in this city of Dayton, 
with its 5,000 negro population. The labor unions do 
not admit him to membership, except in very rare 
instances, and this fact cuts him off from engaging 
in the more profitable occupations. In 1886 the brick- 
layers' union in Dayton struck, demanding higher 
wages. There were many colored brick-layers in the 
city at that time, and the union, fearing that they 
would step into the breach and do the work, invited 
them to join. They accepted the invitation, and the 
strike was won in consequence. But when the em- 
ployers called the union back to work, they would not 
employ the colored members, on the ground that they 
had deserted the employers in the strike. The colored 
people asked the union to stand back of them in de- 
manding work- This the union refused to do, saying 
that they could not afford another strike. The colored 
men were thus forced out of the union. 

At the National Cash Register Company's plant, 
nl tout the year 1896, two negroes were taken into the 
truckers' union. Soon afterward they were discharged 
by the company for no good reason, but the union did 
not stand out for their reinstatement, as they would 
have done had they been white men. As a result of 



1 38 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

these two incidents, the negroes and the labor unions 
have parted company, and the colored men are cut out 
of all skilled trades. In the factories, they get noth- 
ing to do, except the most menial work and the janitor- 
ships. Even the janitor's jobs were taken away from 
300 of them recently by the National Cash Rigister 
Company. Various reasons were given for the whole- 
sale discharge. The main reason advanced by the 
company was that they desired to have American farm 
boys start in at the bottom and work up. Negroes 
could not do this, because the white employees would 
not work beside them in any higher capacity than jan- 
itor. As the negroes themselves saw it, the 
white people, from the president on down to the low- 
est employee, did not want to have them near, even in 
the capacity of janitor, and hence they were discharg- 
ed. 

No colored person is employed to teach in the 
public schools. There is one colored policeman, and 
by accident one colored man got into the fire depart- 
ment recently. The Democratic mayor having died, 
a Republican, who was president of the city council, 
became the acting mayor. As a solace to the long-suf- 
fering negroes who had voted the Republican ticket so 
long without any spoils, he put one of their number 
into the fire department. Immediately there was re- 
bellion, as no fireman would work beside him. The 
matter was finally settled by making the negro the 
driver of the chiefs buggy. 

As colored men almost never appear as clerks or 
stenographers, and as they are excluded by the labor 
unions from building trades, it is plain that they must 
get their living from doing odd jobs, from performing 
work that their white brothers feel themselves above, 
or they must get it from that one other source — steal- 
ing. What little work they do got, they must do at less 
pay than that given white men for the same work; 
and ye I when they go to buy tilings at the white men's 



DAYTON 139 

grocery, they have to pay as much as, and in not a few 
cases more than, the white laborers. 

One conclusion must be drawn from all this infor- 
mation, and that is that the negroes in this city are 
surrounded by strong prejudice. I talked with many 
old negroes who had been in the town since the Civil 
War, and it was the universal opinion of these men 
that the prejudice has been growing stronger every 
year. For a few years after the war, they could go into 
a hotel or into any public place and buy what they had 
the money to pay for ; but for a long time now that has 
been denied them. During the last five to ten years, 
the growth of the feeling against them has been amaz- 
ing, as the white people themselves admit. 

The opinion of the negroes as to the cause for this 
increase of prejudice, was one that I had not heard in 
any other city, and yet in this city, it was proclaimed 
by practically all the colored people, especially by the 
older generation- It was this: The "old-line white 
families," meaning the cultured families of long stand- 
ing, were rapidly dying out, and in their place were 
rising the newly-rich and uncultured families who 
were ready to take advantage of all artificial props to 
uphold their importance. To the negroes they could 
show no mercy. 

As the white people of Dayton viewed the matter, 
the cause of the prejudice was very different. They 
said that the old-fashioned negroes who "knew their 
place" were all gone and that the new generation was 
impudent and vicious. Especially was this true of 
the negroes just arrived from the South. The white 
people claimed that instead of an improvement being 
noticeable in the negro he was actually getting worse 
in every way. 

From these two explanations of the cause of race 
prejudice in this city, it can be easily seen how wide 
apart the viewpoints of the two races are. 

This description of Dayton may well close by giving 



i 4 o THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

the comments of two aged colored men on the question 
of the improvement of the colored race. One of these 
men had worked for Jefferson Davis in Richmond dur- 
ing the war. When I told him that the white people 
of Dayton thought his race had not improved since the 
war, he answered with this homely illustration : "Then 
it is the white people's fault. The negro is like an oys- 
ter : if you keep knocking it or showing bad feeling to- 
ward it, it will remain closed, but throw some salt and 
corn meal to it and leave it alone and then it will come 
out." 

The other colored man who expressed himself on 
the question of race progress was the janitor of the 
Dayton postoffice. He said, "The white people fail to 
remember that the negro is laboring under an obstacle 
that the white race never had to encounter. He is sur- 
rounded on all sides by a race much more numerous, 
by a race which has the wealth of the land in its grasp, 
but ten times worst of all, by a race that in its actions 
every day proclaims to him that it regards him as one 
white man expressed it: 'This is the way I class the 
nigger among the races — (1) the white man, (2) the 
Mongolian, (3) the Japanese, (4) the Chinaman, (5) 
the dog, and (6) and last, the nigger.' " 



CHAPTER III. 

SPRINGFIELD. 

Springfield is a city of 40,000 people, located 
about twenty miles from Dayton- Its treatment of the 
negroes is practically the same even in details as that 
in Dayton; the only difference, if any, being that the 
feeling is more intense against them in Springfield. 
Here they are denied entertainment in the hotels, 
forbidden to eat in the white man's restaurant, refused 
service at the white man's soda fountain and saloon, 
barred from the amusement houses. 

The negroes' manner of making a living is the 
same as that found in Dayton. It is a bare bread and 
butter existence obtained from odd jobs and hard, dis- 
agreeable labor. Here again they are denied admis- 
sion to the carpenters' union, the cigar makers' union, 
the printers' union, the molders' union, and in fact, all 
unions except the bricklayers'. This last named union 
admits a few of them. The secretary of the association 
of labor unions of this city told me that the prejudice 
against them in the unions was due to natural repug- 
nance, and also to the fact that they had engaged as 
strike-breakers. He also informed me that there was 
no law in any labor union constitution against then- 
admission, but that it was left to the local organiza- 
tion to admit whom it pleased. 

Springfield has the reputation of cherishing the 
most bitter hate of the negro which is to be found 
among t he cities of the North. This reputation is due 
to two race riots (1904 and 1900 ). 1 In the first of 
these riots a negro was hanged upon a telephone pole 
and shot to pieces, after which the negro section of the 
city was set on fire. In the second riot, the lives of the 
two negro criminals wanted by the mob were saved by 

1 Described in a preceding chapter. 



142 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

their being hurried out of the city by the police. The 
mob then turned its hatred against the negro section 
of the city, and for the second time reduced a part of it 
to ashes. The causes, and especially the results, of 
these riots constitute the main item of interest that 
Springfield offers in this study of race prejudice in 
Ohio. 

One of the main causes given by the white people 
of the city was the impudence and insolence of the ne- 
groes for some time before the riots. This was man- 
ifested in such ways as bumping against white people 
on the streets and crowding in on them in street-cars. 
Another cause of the ill-feeling against them, and, at 
the same time, a cause of their insolence, lay in the 
fact that the colored voters held the balance of power 
in city politics, which caused the police judge to favor 
them in all possible ways. The number of insolent ne- 
groes had been increased very much a few years before 
by immigration from North and South Carolina. 
These negroes are coming into all parts of Ohio in 
large numbers, and their coming is welcome neither to 
the whites nor to the old negroes who have lived long 
enough in the State to learn "their place." These 
native negroes know full well that, as things stand, 
the whole race must suffer for the wrongs of the few, 
that the white man as a rule sees no difference between 
the worst negro and all negroes. When one of these 
South Carolina negroes killed a white man, the whites 
were not satisfied with his individual punishment, but 
the Avhole negro population had to be burnt out of 
house and home. So Springfield suffered a riot requir- 
ing the presence of State troops for several days. 

Now, what are the present-day conditions in this 
city, what are the results of these riots upon the feel- 
ings of the people? The one answer that I got to this 
question from all classes of people was that the feeling 
was like a smouldering volcano, ready to explode at the 
leasl shock. They did not know whether it was grow- 



SPRINGFIELD I43 

ing or not; they rather thought it had reached its 
full height. Ever since the last riot in 190G, it has 
seemed but an armed truce between the two races, 
and this is more literally true than most people will 
want to believe. 

In the summer of 1907, it almost broke out again. 
One negro shot another one and started to run through 
one of the business streets. Someone cried out that 
he had shot a white woman, and immediately the 
whites gave chase. They caught him, and were beat- 
ing him to death when the police rescued him, telling 
the mob that he had only shot another negro. Thus 
close did Springfield come to her third race riot in 
three years' time, and each day now she lives in dread 
of what may happen within the space of twenty-four 
hours. 

I said above that there was practically an armed 
truce between the two races. From absolutely relia- 
ble sources, from the editor of one of Springfield's 
largest daily papers, from negroes themselves, I have 
information that a secret organization was formed 
among the colored people soon after the riot of 190G, 
and the objects of the members of this organization 
were to procure firearms, to drill themselves in the use 
of them and to prepare themselves in every possible 
way for self defense in the next riot. Bombs were 
secured, and many colored homes were converted into 
small arsenals. Colored men and colored women have 
gone on the outskirts of the city and practiced shoot- 
ing. These facts have not been published in the city 
papers. The editor told me that these items have been 
suppressed by all the papers in the city, as they would 
only incite both factions on to conflict. 

Let me give the words of a hot-blooded white ex- 
press agent and a hot-blooded negro that I found fish- 
ing by the river-side, both of whom talked as if they 
were waiting and almost anxious for the fray. The 
white man said, "The race feeling now? Just like a 



i 4 4 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

volcano ready to break out and, when it does, look out 
for something awful. There will be a big row of dead 
niggers and probably whites too. Everyone in town, 
white and black, has at least one gun." 

The following were the words of the colored man : 
"The feeling is much worse here since the riots. The 
colored people's houses are small arsenals, and every 
man has at least one good gun. They have been prac- 
ticing shooting too, and even the colored women can 
shoot well. If another riot starts, there will be such 
trouble as will make this old town shake." 



CHAPTER IV. 

COLUMBUS. 

Columbus, the capital of Ohio, 1ms a feeling to- 
ward the negroes all its own. In all my travels in the 
State, I found nothing just like it. It is not so much a 
rabid feeling of prejudice against the negroes simply 
because their skin is black as it is a bitter hatred for 
them because they are what they are in character and 
habits- The negroes are almost completely outside the 
pale of the white people's sympathy in this city, but 
the latter justify themselves, and in fact many of the 
better class of negroes agree with them, on the ground 
that so many of the negroes are proving themselves by 
their attitude and conduct unworthy of the respect of 
decent people. This condition of affairs has been grow- 
ing by leaps and bounds during the last five or ten 
years. Most of the colored people say that it is since 
the coming of a large number of disreputable Southern 
negroes that affairs have grown worse. The white 
people seem to think that the late comers are prone 
to assert "their rights" a little too freely- Whatever 
the cause may be, this much is evident,— the feeling 
against the negroes is bitter in the extreme. 

Let me quote from the assistant adjutant-general 
of Ohio : "The anti-negro feeling here in Columbus is 
at white heat. We are expecting an outbreak any day 
and are getting everything in readiness for it, so far 
as the military is concerned. Probably you noticed 
that a new Gatling gun has been placed in the rotunda 
of the capitol building." 

How does this anti-negro feeling assert itself? 
In much the same manner as has been described al- 
ready in speaking of Cincinnati, Dayton, and Spring- 
field. However, there are a few especially interesting 
conditions that I must present. I have already shown 
that hotels almost without exception refuse to enter- 



146 THE COLOR UNE IN OHIO 

tain colored people, and the Columbus hotels are no 
exception. The leading hotel of the city, The Chitten- 
den, comes as near to being an exception, as the follow- 
ing words from its manager will indicate: "No; we 
do not entertain negroes. Our white guests would not 
permit it for a moment. There have been a few in- 
stances in which white guests, especially from the 
South, have brought their colored nurses with them. 
These colored women we have put in a back room and 
we have served their meals to them there. We charg- 
ed the white guests heavily for them, as after their de- 
parture we always thoroughly renovated the rooms, 
taking up carpets, washing all the bed-clothes, airing 
and often destroying the mattresses." 

The assistant manager of the Great Southern Ho- 
tel told me that they did practically the same as in the 
case of the Chittenden. The "Busy Bee" restaurants, 
of which there are several in the city, owned by one 
man, will serve negroes under protest at a back table 
and at raised prices. No more easy is it for the ne- 
groes to get a drink than it is to get food. None of the 
first-class soda-fountains will serve them, and in sa- 
loons, if they insist on service, it is given them at 
double price, after which the glass contaminated by 
their touch is sometimes broken in pieces at their feet. 
Recently a bartender, caught by his proprietor serving 
a drink to his colored barber, was told that a repeti- 
tion of the offense would cost him his position. 

To show that all classes of whites are banded to- 
gether against the negroes, it will suffice to say that 
the Young Women's Christian Association does not 
admit colored women to any of its advantages, nor 
does the Young Ladies' Educational and Industrial 
Institute, a philanthropic organization located on 
Fourth street. 

From this account, it is hard to imagine the ne- 
groes in a worse condition socially, but they are 
no better off industrially. The whites employ the ne- 



COLUMBUS I47 

groes only when they have to do it, when they them- 
selves will suffer if they do not do it. To show that 
I am generalizing only from specific facts, I shall state 
a feAv conditions that exist in Columbus today. 

The street railway company, employing hundreds 
of men and taking in thousands of dollars every year 
from negroes in the way of fares, employs not one ne- 
gro, even as janitor or ditch digger. Not a factory of 
any consequence in the city employs a negro in any 
skilled work. This work of course goes to the unions, 
and we have already seen how the unions in Ohio have 
no use for the colored men. In Columbus negroes may 
be found in a union now and then, but they themselves 
say that in such cases the whites took them in only 
that they might the more effectually defeat their ef- 
forts. Some few of the negroes have refused invita- 
tions to join. Such was the case of a colored musical 
organization a few years ago. This organization was 
giving exceptional music, and was receiving many calls 
for service. The white musicians' union asked the 
colored musicians to join them, after first trying in 
every other way to kill their organization. The invi- 
tation was not accepted. 

Five years ago a colored man came to Columbus 
from Virginia. He was a member of the National 
Bricklayers' Union, and had his card stating that he 
was in good standing. The local union paid his wages 
for five weeks and let him walk about the streets in 
idleness, rather than have him work by their side 
Recently a white man employed upon a new building 
both white and colored bricklayers of the same union. 
First one white man and then another pretended sick- 
ness and quit work, leaving finally but the few colored 
men working- The builder then had to discharge I lie 
negroes before he could hire enough while men to com- 
plete the work. 

What then is left to the colored man in the way 
of employment? He can labor ;ii unskilled work in 



1 48 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

the steel plants and foundries. He can work in fer- 
tilizer factories with their loathsome odor. He can 
clean sewers and work on the streets. The "profes- 
sion" of janitor is still his, but the one other "profes- 
sion" of the colored race, that of waiter, is gradually 
slipping from his grasp. The "Busy Bee" restaurants 
have displaced the negroes with white girls, much to 
the satisfaction of the customers, so the manager in- 
formed me. The Neil House manager told me that he 
would be only too glad to displace his fifty colored 
waiters with white ones if he could get them. Other 
managers expressed themselves against the negro 
waiter. 

The popularity of the colored barber is also on the 
wane, according to the report of several negroes, for a 
long time engaged in this work. One of them told me 
of the following incident that occurred in his shop just 
a few days before his talk with me. A white man came 
and pulled his coat off, ready to have some work done, 
when, looking around, he noticed that all the barbers 
were colored. A look of surprise and disappointment 
came over his face. He put his coat on again and 
walked out without saying a word. 

The industrial position of the negroes in this city 
could hardly be worse. They get but little work to do, 
and then often they have to accept lower wages than 
white men would receive for the same work. More- 
over, they are without incentive to strong effort, since 
they know that they cannot rise by meritorious work. 
As one of them said to me, "Here's the situation. You 
and I could go to some big establishment and get jobs 
scrubbing floors. You would be able to advance to- 
ward the presidency of the institution as fast as you 
showed yourself deserving in the eyes of your employ- 
er. I could go on working at my job, and twenty-five 
years later, you would find me slill a janitor. Both 
of us realizing this situation when Ave began our 



COLUMBUS 149 

work, which one would naturally show the more am- 
bition and render the better service?" 

What becomes of the little money that the negroes 
do manage to get into their hands? I have already 
stated that they have to pay as much as, or more than, 
the white men for their groceries. Scarcely any of 
them own their own homes- They cannot buy or rent 
in any good portion of the city. They are crowded off 
by themselves in miserable tenements owned by white 
men and built with total disregard for sanitary condi- 
tions, but let at high rentals. 

So far I have given the side of the case that en- 
gages sympathy for the negro. Now let us view the 
case from the white man's point of view, showing the 
causes of his attitude toward, and treatment of, the 
negroes. 

I have just before stated that it is not a blind prej- 
udice that seems to actuate the white people of Colum- 
bus in their treatment of the negroes, but a bitter hat- 
red of the negroes because of their character and hab- 
its. They say that the negroes are not only shiftless 
and careless about their persons, but that they cannot 
be trusted; and, furthermore, that they are constant ly 
doing things to antagonize and affront the white peo- 
ple. These accusations, if true, are serious. Let us 
examine them at some length. The manager of the 
large Chittenden Hotel, employing almost a hundred 
negroes, says that they are altogether shiftless. The 
colored waiters of their own accord will not keep their 
napkins clean nor even their own persons. They re- 
quire constant watching. The manager of the Neil 
House, another large hotel employing fifty negroes, 
had exactly the same complaint against them- The 
"Busy Bee" restaurants, employing almost two hun- 
dred people, have lately dispensed with all colored 
help chiefly on this ground. 

The Columbus Street Railway Company employ- 
ed hundreds of them up to a few years ago. They 



I5 o THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

were unreliable, would work one day, get intoxicated 
the next, and then come back to work for a day or so 
again. The company in disgust finally said that they 
would not employ another negro, and they have stood 
by their decision to this day. A man with some color- 
ed blood in his veins runs a large grocery store on High 
street and employs more than a dozen clerks. Until 
a few years ago he employed colored clerks. He dis- 
charged them, he told me, because he could not de- 
pend on them, and since that time has employed white 

clerks. 

A colored photographer, a man far above the av- 
erage of his race, said that there was no question but 
that the ordinary negroes in Columbus merit the ill 
opinion of all decent people for the manner in which 
they live. They are generally to be found living in 
miserable hoveis, or in big "rat-and-fire-trap tene- 
ments," where every Sunday, especially, they get intox. 
icated, hold dog, cat, and chicken fights, play the ban- 
jo, dance cake-walks, and in other ways make the day 
hideous for their neighbors. They live like hogs, and 
are often called "the one-day livers." Their ambition 
is to make enough money to get intoxicated Saturday 
night and to feast and carouse all day Sunday. My 
informant said that, while this is true for the average 
negroes of the city, it applies especially to the new ne- 
groes that have lately come up from the South. A 
dozen colored women of the better class went to these 
negroes a short time ago and tried to do a little mis- 
sionary work among them. They were received with 
insults on all sides, and were called "the white folks' 
niggers." A pastor of the leading colored church of 
the city and one of the best known colored preachers 
of Ohio, confirmed the above statements, and told mo 
in addition that matters were even worse; Hint these 
negroes wore going about the streets dirty and half- 
clothed, willi but an undergarment for a shirt, and 
thai often open in front. They were used to doing this 



COLUMBUS 151 

in the South, and they never thought of being tidy, and 
did not realize that they were making themselves and 
their race offensive to the white people. He said that 
he, and other ministers, had of late appealed to them 
to better these conditions. 

Closely associated with the idea that they are 
shiftless is the idea that they are too prone to steal. 
Even the negroes themselves at times acknowledged 
this weakness. A colored janitor declared as the main 
reason why his people did not more often patronize 
their own colored lawyers, that they could not trust 
them. The managers of the large hotels, where they 
are employed, say that almost without exception the 
negroes will steal, whenever they get the chance, and 
that they are very cunning in the way they do it. Some 
of the hotels have a regular system of espionage, and 
every negro as he leaves between watches is examined 
to see that he has no packages about him. The man- 
ager of the Neil House told me of the following inci- 
dent that recently occurred. He had a negro employ- 
ed to polish the brass fixtures in the bar-room. He was 
an adept at it, and the manager praised him. Soon he 
got to coming early in the morning before the bar- 
tender was up, giving as his excuse that he could 
work so much better before people got around. Soon 
news came to the manager that this colored man was 
giving fancy wine suppers. He started an investiga- 
tion, which revealed that for some time the negro had 
been carrying away the best of his wines in a specially 
constructed bottle made very flat in order to lie close 
to his person, and thus be unnoticed by the watcher at 
the door. This incident, the manager told me, was 
but one of many. 

In the winter of lOOS-'OO, there were seventeen 
purses snatched from white ladies, and every one of 
them by colored men. There were also many daylight 
robberies committed by negroes. A man of importance 
in the public schools of the city told me that it was 



!52 



THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 



the most natural thing in the world for them to steal, 
and that they did not seem to realize that they were 
doing wrong. His explanation for this condition is 
interesting. He said it was bred in their bones. In 
slavery days, if they were well treated, they could go 
to the chicken-roost and get chickens for their cabin 
dinners without a word being said against it; while, 
if they had a bad master, they felt compelled to steal 
in order to live. In neither case then did they consider 
it a crime to steal, and today as a result, they consider 
it no crime to steal, either from their friend or from 
their enemy- 
One other great complaint made by the white 
people against the negroes, aside from their shiftless- 
ness and stealing, was that they had a strong desire to 
antagonize the whites in all possible ways, especially 
in public places. Their actions on street cars were 
condemned by all whites, and by the better class of 
blacks. When a negro boards the street-car he pro- 
ceeds to get a seat whether there is one vacant or not. 
The following incident told by the colored photogra- 
pher already referred to will illustrate this matter 
quite fully. He was on a street-car one evening when 
a negro, fresh from his work in the steel mill, with his 
filthy working clothes on, boarded the car and, al- 
though there was no room, crowded into a seat by the 
side of a white woman, elegantly dressed. When the 
colored photographer remonstrated with him for his 
action, he turned and said, "I'm no d — d white man's 
nigger like you. I have a right here, and I am going 
to take it." The conductor came along and put him off 
the car, the colored photographer giving the conduct- 
or his name as a witness if needed. 

The janitor of the Chamber of Commerce build- 
ing, himself a negro, recently got off a street-car in 
very sluime of his race, because a crowd of North Car- 
olina negroes were acting in such a disgraceful man- 



COLUMBUS 153 

ner. He said that he had to wait almost a half-hour 
for another car, but he was willing to do it, rather 
than be classed with such people. 

While the white people of Columbus are inclined 
to blame the whole race for such actions, I know from 
111 v conversation with the better-class negroes that they 
are far from sympathizing with such conduct. Many 
of them desire pleasant relations with the white peo- 
ple, and are against doing anything to antagonize 
them. 

The following will illustrate the views of the bet- 
ter class of negroes in this matter of antagonizing the 
white people. The colored groceryman, of whom I 
have previously spoken, has always employed a white 
girl as book-keeper- He lives in the same section of the 
city that she lives in, and they have to ride to and from 
home on the same street-car line. In all the years that 
he has employed her, he has never appeared on the 
street by her side, nor has he recognized her on the 
stieet-car. Living on the same street, they would nor- 
mally get off at the same corner, but, whenever he hap- 
pens to find her on the same street-car with himself, he 
manages to have business at the street just before or 
beyond where she gets off. His reason for acting in 
this way is that it would cause talk and injure both 
of them if they were seen together. He believes that 
the colored man ought to be careful to do nothing 
that antagonizes the white race, and, in his opinion, 
nothing is more repulsive to the white man, than the 
idea of amalgamation of the races. Many others of the 
better class of negroes expressed themselves to the 
sime effect. 



CHAPTER V. 

CLEVELAND. 

I have thought of heading this. chapter "The ne- 
gro's Paradise," 1 owing to the fact that it pictures a 
condition in such contrast to the situation in Ohio at 
large. In Cleveland, the largest city of Ohio, accord- 
ing to the census of 1900, the negro has almost com- 
plete economic equality with the white man. By this 
I mean that he is permitted to earn his living by work- 
ing in that calling for which he is equipped, and for 
which he has a liking, just as is the white man. As 
a result we find him doing well in many occupations. 

A colored man by the name of George D. Jones 
has recently invented a trolley-wheel that is said to be 
one of the best on the market. He has patented it, 
interested a few of his colored friends in it and is now 
engaged in its manufacture on a considerable scale. 
Several white capitalists have tried to purchase an in- 
terest in the business and conduct it on a larger scale, 
but they have not been successful. The negro has 
faith in himself to carry on what he has so well begun. 

A colored man is the manager of a large manufac- 
tory employing about one hundred white men and one 
hundred blacks. The Leonard Sofa Bed Company is 
a good-sized factory, owned exclusively by colored peo- 
ple, and colored people only are employed by it. 

The superintendent of construction of the im- 
mense Hippodrome building in which the National 
Educational Association held its meetings in 1908 was 
a colored man, and one of unusual ability. 

Cleveland has honored several colored men with 
high political offices. A few years ago she sent a col- 
ored man by the name of Green to the State Senate as 
her representative. Mr. Green now occupies a govern- 

1 This description was published in The Independent, New York. 
March 7, 1912. 



CLEVELAND 155 

ment position in the postal service, and he is a lawyer 
by profession. Two other colored men have been sent 
as Cleveland's representatives to the lower house of 
the State Legislature, and these were sent at the same 
time. One negro has been a city justice of the peace 
for many years. 

Besides those engaged in manufacturing pursuits 
and political work, we find a good number in the pro- 
fessions, and many of these doing well. There are sev- 
eral lawyers, one of whom is an author of considera- 
ble note, having written several novels and some more 
serious works. He has a large practice, which is not 
confined by any means to his own race. He is honored 
and esteemed by many of the leading white men of the 
city. 

There are some colored physicians. Their prac- 
tice is confined almost exclusively to the colored pop- 
ulation. There are some dentists whose practice is 
likewise limited. There are also several colored teach- 
ers, whose teaching is not restricted to the colored 
schools, for there has not been an exclusively colored 
school in Cleveland since it was founded. These col- 
ored teachers are engaged in instructing white and 
colored children alike in the regular public schools. 
One colored girl, a graduate of Smith College, teaches 
Latin and Algebra in the Central High School and is 
successful in her work. Eleven other colored girls, 
graduates mostly of Western Reserve University, lo- 
cated at Cleveland, teach in the grades. The Superin- 
tendent of Schools and others informed me that their 
work was wholly satisfactory, and that there had been 
scarcely a complaint from a white parent that his 
child was being taught by a colored person. The head 
of the large Hatch library for about fifteen years was 
a colored man. 

The colored men are admitted to trades unions 
on the same basis as the white men, receive the same 



i 5 6 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

wages and work on the same jobs with the white men 
without any friction. 

As many white men and many colored men told 
the writer, the negro is given a clear field in which to 
work out his own Avelfare and, if he "makes good," he 
is respected for it by the white people. The colored 
men feel that they are fairly treated and have no com- 
plaint to make. Feeling also that it is "up to them to 
make good," they are steadied in life and get down to 
business more than they otherwise would. To illus- 
trate how this feeling permeates the average man of 
the race in this city of Cleveland, consider the follow- 
ing fact: The proprietor of the barber shop in the 
leading hotel, the Hollenden, a colored man himself, 
and the leading colored henchman of the late Senator 
Marcus Hanna in the city of Cleveland stated to me 
that he employed fifteen colored men in his shop, each 
one of whom owned his own home and, besides, had a 
comfortable bank account. 

The negro in this city of Cleveland is given the 
opportunity of making his living as he sees fit ; he im- 
proves the opportunity and is happy. He does not com- 
plain because the white man does not treat him as his 
boon companion. There is no social equality between 
the two races, and at the same time there is no bittter- 
ness over it. Both races seem too wise to let that 
enter into the relations between them. They are two 
distinct races. Each race seems to say to the other : 
Here we are, thrown together upon this one spot of 
Mother Earth. Let us make the best of it. We all 
must fight the battle of life ; we must work in order to 
live. You have as much right to live as we. You may 
work at what your hands find to do, and we will do 
the same. You enjoy the fruits of your labors as you 
see fit, we will do the same. 

And working out this declaration of interdepend- 
ence and independence, the people of Cleveland have 
come near to furnishing to the world at large an ideal 



CLEVELAND i 57 

condition of affairs between the white and colored 
races- In making their living from the same piece of 
ground, they have found it profittable to combine. 
The two races in enjoying the fruits of their Labors 
have seen fit to enjoy them separately. They do not 
seem to realize that there is any "negro problem," or 
anything of the kind. Everything is taken as a matter 
of course. On making specific enquiries as to what 
extent the two races mix socially, I found out the fol- 
lowing things: 

The negroes live to themselves on Central Avenue 
Cedar Avenue and Done Street. According to the 
census of 1900, there were G,000 of them. The two 
races prefer to live by themselves in their home life. 
As the negro population increases, and new land is 
needed to accommodate it, adjacent property is al- 
ways ready for sale at a reasonable price. 

Men of the two races may meet as friends on the 
streets or in a business way, but this relation is never 
extended to the home life. The white man will not 
think of such a thing as introducing a colored person 
to his wife nor will he have them meet on the same 
social plane. This is illustrated by the following- 
case: There is a club of the leading literary men in 
the city, who have met for years. In this club there 
is an author of large gifts, but who happens to have 
almost an imperceptible amount of colored blood in 
his veins- Some time ago it w r as proposed that the club 
have a banquet, to which they would invite their wiv- 
es. The idea was entered into with enthusiasm, until 
one of the members happened to think that it would 
be necessary to have the wife of the colored member 
present. The whole tiling was then quietly dropped, 
the members of the club taking the following view of 
the matter, as expressed by one of them : "Although T 
am a Southerner, I am broad-minded enough to admire 
Mr. A. for his work. I like to talk with him and shake 
his hand, but for my wife to meet his wife in social 



158 THE COLOR UNE IN OHIO 

equality is a very different thing- She would not agree 
to it, and I could not blame her." 

A few years ago some of the young negroes tried 
to attend the public dance along with the whites, but 
it was made so uncomfortable for them that they do 
not attempt it any more. 

Ordinarily, the colored people of Cleveland are 
very thoughtful about intruding themselves upon the 
white people in any way that would be disagreeable 
for either race. This is shown in their attitude to- 
ward frequenting white people's eating places or res- 
taurants. When I asked many of the white people 
about this, the usual reply was, "Well, since I come 
to think about it, I never see a colored man in any res- 
taurant where I eat. I suppose they would feed him 
if he should come in, but as he knows that there is gen- 
erally some feeling about that matter, I suppose he has 
the good sense to stay away or patronize his own res- 
taurant." And that he does, for his own self-respect, 
and because he thinks it wise. 

Each race shows regard for the rights and desires 
of the other, and the result is a most happy one for all 
concerned; and Cleveland stands out today in a class 
by itself so far as the cities of Ohio are concerned, and 
probably there are few like it in this regard throughout 
the country. 

The question now naturally comes up, why is 
Cleveland's attitude towards the negro what it is? 
The following facts will help to answer this question : 
According to the census of 1900, her population of 
381,768 was made up of 124,631 foreign-born people, 
163,570 native whites of foreign parents, and 87,740 
native whites of native parents. The last mentioned 
class was composed of those born of American par- 
ents, most of whom came from Connecticut and the 
New England States, where little prejudice was felt 
.•n gainst the negro. The other two classes came 
from countries not so recently afflicted with the curse 



CLEVELAND 159 

of African slaver}', and hence felt less antipathy to- 
wards its victims. 

It seems to me as if this happy condition of affairs 
in Cleveland presents food for thought, not only to the 
white man in other cities, but to the negro as well. 
There are 80,000,000 of white people in this land and 
in round numbers 10,000,000 of colored people living 
amongst them. At the present time they are living 
in far from pleasant relations with each other. It 
would seem as if this spirit of compromise, fair play 
and good feeling, so evident in the relations of the two 
peoples of Cleveland, would be the desirable one for 
all concerned. 



CHAPTER VI. 

SYRACUSE, A NEGRO-HATING SMALL TOWN. 

In Syracuse, the writer's boyhood home, a town 
of about 2,000 inhabitants, on the Ohio river four 
miles above Pomeroy, no negro is permitted to reside. 1 
jSo negro is permitted to stay in the town over night 
under any consideration. This is an absolute rule at 
the present day, and such has been the custom for 
several generations. The enforcement of this unwrit- 
ten law for keeping the negro from staying in the town 
over a single night is mostly in the hands of the boys 
from twelve to twenty years of age; but the attempt 
of a negro to become a resident of the town is resisted 
by the townspeople as a whole. 

When a colored man is seen in the town during 
the day he is generally told of these traditions and is 
warned to leave before sun-down. If he fails to take 
heed, he is surrounded at about the time that darkness 
begins, and is addressed by the leaders of the gang in 
about this language : "No nigger is allowed to stay in 
this town over night. We don't care what you are 
here for. Get out of here now, and get out quick." 
He sees from twenty-five to fifty boys around him talk- 
ing in subdued voices and waiting to see whether he 
obeys. If he hesitates, small stones begin to rain upon 
him from unseen quarters, and this soon persuades 
him to begin his hegira. He is not allowed to walk, 
but is told to "get on his little dog trot." The com- 
mand is always effective, for it is backed by stones in 
the ready hands of boys none too friendly. So long as 
he keeps up a good gait, the crowd, which follows just 
at his heels, and which keeps growing until it some- 
times numbers seventy-five to one hundred boys, is 
good-natured and contents itself with yelling, laugh- 

1 This article appeared in The Independent, New York, July 19, 
1903. 



A SMALL TOWN 161 

ing and hurling gibes at its victim. Bu1 let him stop 
his "trot" for one moment, from any cause whatever, 
and the stones immediately begin to fall. Tims they 
follow him to the farthest limits of the town, where 
they send him on his way, while (hey return to the 
city with triumph and tell their fathers all about the 
function, how fast the victim ran, how scared he wns, 
how he pleaded and promised that he would go and 
never return if they would only go back and leave 
him, how Johnnie Jones hit him with such a big rock 
that it knocked him down. Then the fathers tell how 
they used to do the same thing, aud thus the heroes 
of two wars spend the rest of the evening by the old 
camp-fire, recounting their several campaigns. 

The conditions in this town of Syracuse are 
unusual in several ways. All the. surrounding towns 
have a considerable negro population. Just three mil- 
es below is the small town of Kerr's Run, which has 
more black residents than white. Most of them are 
afraid to go up to Syracuse even during the day-time, 
for the reputation of that town is known by almost ev- 
ery negro that works upon the Ohio river between Cin- 
cinnati and Pittsburg. Syracuse is the eastern termi- 
nal of the White Collar Line Steamboat system from 
Cincinnati. Many of the negro hands on this line are 
afraid to go up into the town to load salt and to get 
freight unless the steamboat officers are with them. 
When they want anything from the stores they usu- 
ally try to hire some small boy to go for them. 

One colored family lives in the country on a small 
farm just beyond the town limits. The father, whose 
name is Rush Johnson, came there during the Civil 
W T ar, and he tells many stories of being brutally 
stoned and in other ways warned to leave the 
country. He was a courageous, industrious, and hon- 
est negro, and in a few years so Avon respect thai In' 
was permitted to stay without being molested. Eow- 



162 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

ever, he and his children have never dared to come 
into the town after night. 

The oldest son of this family, in resentment at an 
insult one day struck a white school-mate. He was 
pounced upon immediately by a mob of white boys, 
brutally beaten, and rolled over a steep embankment, 
sustaining many injuries. He left school, went West, 
worked his way through college and is now a minister 
of a negro church in Illinois. 

A daughter of this family attended the high 
school in the class before that of the writer. Living 
within the limits of the high school special district 
she could not be debarred but she was practically "sent 
to Coventry." None of her schoolmates ever talked 
with her and they objected so much to sitting near her 
that the principal had to arrange a desk for her com- 
pletely removed from the rest of the school. For 
weeks, it seemed, the poor girl never spoke a word from 
the time she got on the school grounds until she left. 
Through all these and many more discouraging cir- 
cumstances the brave girl struggled on through her 
four years' course, passed her examinations, and was 
within two months of graduation when she was at- 
tacked by consumption and compelled to give up her 
school work- Then, for the first time, the heart of 
the town was touched by the sufferings of a colored 
person. All knew her case, and had seen her struggle ; 
most had opposed her, but at last the sympathy of 
many was aroused. The board of education suspend- 
ed its rule requiring the passing of final examina- 
tions and voted Miss Margaret Johnson her diploma. 
During these two months of illness before commence- 
ment she was not idle. For four long years she had 
gone to her school regularly, had studied her lessons 
and attended her classes, like the rest of her class- 
mates; and during those years she, too, had thought of 
the night when she could stand before her friends (her 
family, of course, for none others of her race dared 



A SMALL TOWN 163 

come into the village) and could receive the diploma 
that would reward her for so many hours of toil. Dur- 
ing the days of sickness, she produced her essay and 
asked that she might be permitted to read it along 
with her classmates, for she was always eager to do as 
they did, although she knew that she was among them 
but not of them. However bitter her thoughts, she 
never expressed them ; never once had she complained 
of her treatment or shown resentment. 

On the day when the long-looked-for commence- 
ment exercises were held, in June 189G, she appeared 
in a carriage, and was assisted to a front seat where 
she sat by the side of her father and two brothers, 
(her mother had recently died of the same disease 
that had seized upon her). She was too weak and ill 
to sit upon the platform with her twelve classmates, 
and so with sad but triumphant eyes sat facing them. 
Were they proud of her achievements? Far from it. 
Several of them until the last minute strenuously ob- 
jected to graduation with a colored person, as though 
it were a disgrace. 

Finally, the name Margaret Johnson was reached 
upon the program. Though aware that she would not 
be required to read her essay, she insisted upon doing 
her part. Eising from her seat she took a few steps 
forward but was unable to mount the platform : She 
turned where she was, and in a low voice, scarcely 
above a whisper, read her essay on the thread-bare top- 
ic "Perseverance," a theme that burned with meaning 
for her, the first and last of her race to stand before 
a Syracuse audience. 

Thus she triumphed, the diploma was hers, grant- 
ed on the same grounds as those of her classmates. 
She had done her part in winning respect for her race; 
but the sacrifice had to be paid. Two weeks after her 
triumph she died. 

While this girl showed i<» the while people <»f the 
town that the negro might amount f<» something, that 



>>• 



i6 4 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

he might possess some qualities that they admired, 
but did not always show themselves, yet she could not 
dispossess them of the prejudice that had been nour- 
ished by them for so many years. Still no negro lives 
within this town, no negro works beside the white 
man during the day, and no negro so much as breathes 
the night air within its gates. By the women the ne- 
roes are dreaded and feared, even in the day time. The 
little children are taught to fear the "Black Man" with 
all the horrors associated with that name. The writer 
has seen many a child in this town frightened almost 
into hysterics at the mere sight of a colored man. 

Since the town was founded, about 1815, not a ne- 
gro family has lived in it. About the year 1855 two 
negroes were employed as domestics by a family in 
the extreme lower end of the town, practically in the 
country, but they did not stay long. Since the Civil 
War two attempts have been made by negro families 
to settle in the town, but both were summarily driven 
out. The following incident will reveal the mode of 
dealing with such cases and the temper of the people. 

About the year 1886 a colored man said that he 
was going to live in Syracuse, he had a right there, 
and he was going to show the people there that 
he was just as good as they were. Bringing his 
wife and his few household goods he put them 
into a small house which was only four or five doors 
from the writer's home. In the afternoon he was 
called upon, informed of the rule of the town, 
and told that he too must leave before night. He 
replied that he would live there as long as he wished. 
The word went over the town with wonderful 
rapidity, and the people immediately prepared to re- 
sent this affront to the town's dignity. As soon as 
darkness had come a large crowd of bo} r s and men as- 
sembled before the house, calling for the occupant to 
come out. Growing impatient, the crowd went 
through the door with a rush. The negro was quickly 



A SMALL TOWN r 6 5 

overpowered, separated from his wife, and marched 
into the street. There he received the order to march. 
He went to the edge of the town where he was left and 
told that he might sleep anywhere that he wished, bo 
long as he was out of the town limits; that his wife 
would be guarded in the house over night; and that, if 
he were caught sneaking back before daylight, he 
would be hanged to the nearest tree- The next day he 
was allowed to return to the house, where he reloaded 
his goods and with his wife departed to seek a more 
hospitable town. This was the last attempt of a color- 
ed man to set up his household gods in the negro- 
hating town of Syracuse. 



A BRIEF GENERAL SUMMARY. 

Many people will think that conditions in the cities of 
Ohio are peculiar, and that they do not fairly repre- 
sent the sentiment of the State at large in regard to 
the negro. That was my own impression before vis- 
iting the smaller places, but that impression did 
not prove to be correct. After studying conditions 
in Akron a town of 60,000 inhabitants, Portsmouth 
with 20,000 people, Chillicothe with 15,000, Urbana 
with 10,000, Xenia with 10,000, Delaware with 
8,000, Pomeroy with 6,000, Richwood and Syra- 
cuse with 2,000 each and Point Isabel with 200, I 
feel justified in asserting that the feeling against the 
negro, as pictured in the chapters on Cincinnati, Day- 
ton, Springfield, and Columbus, is the sentiment pre- 
vailing with few exceptions throughout the State of 
Ohio. Two exceptions I have given in the chapters on 
Cleveland and Syracuse. 

Three of the towns that I visited — Akron, Galion, 
and Urbana — had witnessed the lynching of negroes 
in recent years. In all of these I found the prejudice 
much stronger than it was before the lynching, and 
the negroes fewer in number. In these towns, and al- 
so the others just mentioned, I found the same general 
condition of affairs as I have described fully in the 
preceding chapters. 

In general the negro has nothing resembling 
equality with the white man in social life or in the 
industrial life- He is refused admittance to hotels, to 
theatres, to restaurants, to soda fountains; he is barr- 
ed from labor unions and is compelled to make his 
living by odd jobs, domestic service, working as jani- 
tor, waiter, etc. In almost every city he is an inhab- 
itant of the most undesirable outskirt. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

The scope of the subject that has been investigat- 
ed in this work is, in a sense, narrow. The subject has 
been race prejudice only, and this as found princi- 
pally in Ohio. In view of this and the further fact 
that no such investigation has ever before been made 
on this subject, one may readily see that the bibliog- 
raphy for it is not extensive. 

The separate county histories, which I thought 
would be one of the richest sources of information, 
proved to be almost valueless. Though many dozens 
of them were looked through carefully (and scarcely 
any of them were indexed), nothing of value was 
found. The newspapers on the other hand were espe- 
cially valuable, as the subject is one calling for in- 
formation on public opinion, which newspapers gener- 
ally reflect. The laws passed by the different Legis- 
latures, together with the journals of the two houses 
of the Legislature, were also most valuable in reveal- 
ing the state of the public mind. The reports of the 
Supreme Court and lower courts of the State consti- 
tuted the next best source. One other source to be 
especially mentioned is the journals of the two consti- 
tutional conventions of 1802 and 1851. 

All of these sources and almost all of the others 
used in this work are to be found in the Ohio State 
Library in the State House at Columbus. 



NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS. 

Cleveland Leader. 
Cleveland Plain Dealer. 
Cincinnati Enquirer. 
Cincinnati Commercial Gazette. 
Cincinnati — The Emporium. 
Columbus — Ohio State Journal. 
Columbus — Ohio Statesman. 
Columbus Dispatch. 
Indiana Statesman. 
Neiv York Evening Post. 
Springfield, Mass., Weekly Republican. 
The Blade, of Portsmouth, Ohio. 
The Supporter, of Chillicothe, Ohio. 
Ohio Educational Monthly. 
Magazine of Western History, VI. 



LAWS AND LEGISLATIVE JOURNALS. 

Laws of Ohio (Annual Editions). 
House Journal (Annual Editions). 
Senate Journal (Annual Editions). 



COURT REPORTS. 

Ohio Reports. 

Ohio Circuits. 

Ohio Circuit Court Reports. 

Ohio State Reports. 

Weekly Law Gazette. 

Wright's Reports. 

(All of the above are to be found in the State Law 
Library in the State House at Columbus.) 



CONSTITUTIONS AND CONVENTION 
JOURNALS. 

Constitutions of 1802 and 1851. 
Journal of Constitutional Convention of 1802— 
Reprinted in index to Senate Journal of 1827 
Convention Debates, 1850-1851 (two volumes). 



OTHER SOURCES. 

Adjutant General's Reports. 

Burnett, Jacob, Notes on Northwest Territory. 

Barber, A. D., A Report on the Condition of Colored 

People in Ohio, 1840. 
Census Reports. 

Jay, William, Miscellaneous Writings on Slavery. 
Minutes of the Convention of Colored People of Ohio 

at Columbus, 1849. 
Niles' Weekly Register. 
Ohio School Reports. 
Proceedings of Ohio Anti-Slavery Convention held at 

Putnam, 1835. 
Seward, William H., Works- 



SECONDARY WORKS. 

Bryce, James, Impressions of South Africa. 

Bryce, James, The Relation of the Advanced and Back- 
ward Races. 

Atwater, Caleb, History of Ohio. 

Chaddock, R E., Ohio Before 1853. 

Cutler, J. P., Life and Times of Judge Ephraim Cutler. 

DuBois, W. E. B., The Souls of Black Folk. 

DuBois, W. E. B , The Philadelphia Negro. 

Evans, Nelson W., History of Scioto County. 

Evans, Nelson W. and Stivers, E. B., History of Ad- 
ams County. 

Fairchild, J. H., Obcrlin, its Origin, Progress and Re- 
sults. 

Finot, Race Prejudice. 

Hickok, diaries T., The Negro in Ohio. 1802-1870. 

Historical Sketches of Ohio — Higher Educational In- 
stitutions. — Article by Daniel L. Payne- 

Howe, Henry, Historical Collections of Ohio. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



171 



History of Ross and Highland Counties. Published 
1880. (Author not given). 

Lee, Alfred E., History of the City of Columbus, Ohio. 

Merriam, The Negro and the Nation. 

Miller, Race Adjustment. 

Morris, B. F., Life of Thomas Morris. 

Ovington, Half a Man. 

Ohio, Archaeological and Historical Publications. 

Page, The Negro The Southerner's Problem. 

Schucker, Life of Chase- 

Sinclair, The Aftermath of Slavery. 

Smith, Political History of Slavery. 

Smith, T. C, The Liberty and Free Soil Parties. 

Smith, AY. B., The Color Line. 

Stephenson, G. T., Race Distinctions in American 
Law. 

Stone, Alfred Holt, Studies in the American Race 
Problem. 

Waggoner, Clark, History of the City of Toledo and 
Lucas County. 

Washington, Booker T., Future of the American Ne- 
gro. 

Washington, Booker T., Up From Slavery- 

Williams, G. W., History of the Negro Race in Amer- 
ica. 

Wilson, Henry, History of the Rise and Fall of the 
Slave Power in America. 



INDEX. 

Akron riot, 116. 

Akron, suit for damages by negro for having to pay too 
high price for liquor at a saloon, 119. 

Barber, A. D., report on condition of colored people of 
Ohio 1840, 48. 

Berry, Dr. Wm. N. D., study of lack of industrial oppor- 
tunity for negroes in Springfield, Mass., 8. 

Black Laws, general nature, 9, 23; bill of 1804, 21 ; bill of 
1807, 23; petition for repeal of, 35, 36; how enforced, 
3*> 33> 34; repeal of, 35-43; why repealed, 37, 105 ; feel- 
ing in State over the repeal, 41. 

Boston, meetings 1855 and 1907 for discussion of the color 
line, 4. 

Boston Reformed League, unable to find work for negroes, 

7 ' ... 

Burnett, Judge, on discussion of negro question in first 

Constitutional Convention, 14; defends Black Laws, 29. 

Chase, Salmon P., connection of, with Black Laws, 39. 

Cincinnati, negroes driven out of, 32 ; negro schools of, 47 ; 
negro woman put off car in, 106 ; negro refused dinner 
in, sues for damages, 118; present status of negro in, 
125-133. (See negroes.) 

Chillicothe, first Constitutional Convention in, in 1802, 13; 
colored political convention in, 107. 

Cleveland, admitted negroes to white schools in the early 
days, 33; speech of Wm. H. Seward at, calling for re- 
peal of the Black Laws, 37; Mr. Andrews from, in 
Constitutional Convention of 1850-51, speaks for ne- 
groes, 71 ; general feeling toward negroes of, today, 154. 
(See negroes.) 

Color, effect of, upon prejudice, 87. 

Color line in the North, 3; Wm. Lloyd Garrison on, 5. 

Commercial Gazette on color line, 3. 

Columbus, negro schools of, 46; trouble over negro in white 
schools of, 109; negro of, denied admission to theatre, 
109-111; status of negroes in, today, I45" T 53- ( See 
negroes.) 



174 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

Committee of Legislature reports on negro status 1827 and 

1833, 30, 55- 
Constitutional Convention, of 1802, its attitude toward 

negroes, 13-21; of 1850-51, its attitude, 60-87; reception 

of petitions in, concerning negroes, 60. 
Dayton, status of negroes in, today, 134-140. (See negroes.) 
Democratic party's attitude toward repeal of the Black 

Laws, 38, 39, 42. 
Du Bois, W. E., "different from others," 5 ; on industrial 

opportunity for negroes in North, 8. 
Education of negroes (see schools). 
Eliot, Charles W., on separation of whites and blacks in 

public schools, 6. 
"Equal rights," law providing for, 103; a myth, no, 118, 

120. 
Free-soil party asks for repeal of the Black Laws, 38. 
Garrison, Wm. Lloyd, on color line, 5. 

Howe, Henry, describes feeling in Waverly, Ohio, 

against negroes, n 2- 114. 
Indiana, excludes negroes from State, 9; hotel man in, 

ruined as result of feeding a negro, 5. 
Illinois, excludes negroes from the State, 9. 
Jay, William, on enforcement of Black Laws, 32 ; on status 

of free negroes, 44; on prejudice, 49. 
Lane Theological Seminary, attitude towards negroes in 

early days, 47; investigation of negro condition in Cin- 
cinnati by, 50. 
Legislature, passes Black Laws, 31, 22; forbids admission 

of negroes to all white schools, 33 ; refuses to receive 

petitions from hands of colored people, 52; repeals 

Black Laws, 35-43; passes school laws for negroes, 88; 

repeals school laws for negroes, 93 ; attitude of, towards 

negro suffrage, 98-100. 
Legislative Committees' reports on negroes in Ohio, 30, 55, 

57- 

Lynching of negroes, in Adams county, 1856 and 1894, 115; 

at Galion, in Crawford county, 1882, 115; at Washing- 
ton Court House, 1894, 115; at New Richmond, Cler- 
mont county, 1895, 115; at Urbana, 1897, 116; at Spring- 
field, 1906, 117. 
Method of investigation followed in this work, 125. 



INDEX 175 



Mulattoes, classed as negroes until Supreme court decision 
in Polly Gray vs. Ohio, 24; in other Supreme court de- 
cisions, 24, 25, 89. 
Nasby, assists in negro suffrage election 1867, 98. 
Negroes, condition of, before Civil War, 25, 26; colonizing 
of, ideas about, as expressed in Constitutional Conven- 
tion of 1850-51, 86; debarred from militia, 22, 76; de- 
barred from jury, 23; debarred from schools, 23, 45, 46. 
82-85 ; denied suffrage by Constitutional Convention of 
1850-51, 81; by popular vote 1867, 98; driven from 
Portsmouth, Ohio, 32; driven from Cincinnati, 32; from 
South find Northerners in university more preju- 
diced than Southerners, 6 ; find industrial opportunity in 
North less favorable than in the South, 6; industrial 
position of, in Cincinnati, 50, 51 ; leg al disabilities of, 
after repeal of the Black Laws, 88; live in quiet in Ohio 
up to 1830, 35 ; lynching of, in Adams county 1856, at 
Galion 1882, at Washington Court House 1894, at New 
Richmond, at Urbana 1894, at Springfield 1906, 115-117; 
not recognized as having any political rights, 21 ; popula- 
tion of, 18, 25, 27, 72, 74, 101, 121 ; position of m first 
half of last century, as pictured by Justice Read of the 
Supreme court, 58 J by Justice Peck of same court, 89, 
00; position of, socially 1802-1849, 44-59 ; position of, 
socially 1849-1912, 105-121 ; refused ticket to theatre 
no- sue for damages, for refusal of meal at a restaurant 
in Cincinnati, 118; for refusal of ticket to theatre in 
Cincinnati, 118; for being charged more than a white 
man in a saloon at Akron, 119; for being denied privi- 
lege of bowling in a public park in Cleveland, Ohio, 119; 
worse off in North than in South, 1 ; in Boston, unable 
to find work, 7 ; in Massachusetts, excluded from cars, 5 ; 
in Indiana, entertainment of, at a white hotel causes its 
doors to close, 5; in first Constitutional Convention of 
1802, denied privilege of voting, 13; denied eligibility to 
any office in State, 14; denied right to give oath against 
a white man, 14; this repealed by one vote, 14; in poli- 
tics 107, 108; in Cincinnati, refused admission to col- 
leges to hospitals, to city fire department, to municipal 
bath house, 128; to public parks, hotels, restaurants 127; 
to saloons, Pullman cars, Y. M. C. A., 128; to Children s 



176 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

Home, theatres, to respectable districts of the city for 
homes, 129; to labor unions, 130; special causes for 
prejudice here, 131 ; in Dayton, refused privilege of buy- 
ing from stores, 134-136; relation to labor unions, 137; 
to National Cash Register Company, 137; to general 
employment, 138, 139; causes of prejudice locally given, 
139, 140; in Springfield, general conditions about same 
as in Dayton, only worse, 141 ; the riots, the causes, 143; 
three riots in three years, an armed truce, 143 ; the pros- 
pect, 144; in Columbus, general state of feeling toward 
the negroes, 145; assistant adjutant-general's remarka- 
ble statement, 145 ; Chittenden Hotel's attitude, 146 ; 
Great Southern Hotel, 146; street railway's refusal to 
employ negroes, 147 ; attitude of labor unions, 147 ; gen- 
eral industrial position, 148; character and habits of 
negroes, 149-153; comments by negroes themselves, 152- 
153; in Cleveland, general attitude, 154; successes of 
various colored men, 154-155; social position, 156-158; 
in Syracuse, a negro-hating small town, 160-165 ; no 
negro allowed to stay over night, 160; how prevented, 
161; a colored girl's school triumph, 162-164; amend- 
ment, 102. 
Oberlin college, doors of, opened to colored students, 47; 
receives 51 students from Lane Theological Seminary, 

47-, 

Ohio, like other Northern States with respect to the negroes, 
4 ; first Northern States to deny privilege to negroes to 
testify against white people, 22; attitude of, on the 15th 
amendment, 102. 

Ohio State Journal, 1827, on settlement of negroes in Law- 
rence county, 31 ; on repeal of Black Laws, 41 ; on edu- 
cation of negroes, 1827, 48 ; editorial ©f, showing wretch- 
ed condition of negroes, 56. 

Patterson, F. D., attitude of, on discussion of status of ne- 
groes, 10. 

Peck, Chief Justice, words of, on prejudice, 89. 

Petitions to Constitutional Convention of 1850-51 in regard 
to determining status of negroes, 61-65. 

Phillips, Wendell, on color line, 5. 

Population of negroes, 25 ; comparison of north and south 
portions of Ohio for, 72; maps showing, 18, 27, 74, 101,. 



INDEX 177 

121. 

Portsmouth, Ohio, negroes driven from, 32. 

Prejudice, as shown in Legislative Committees' reports, 30, 
55; as shown in Justice Read's words, 58; as shown in 
Chief Justice Peck's words, 89, 90; effect of color upon, 
87; increases as population, 1, 73; in the North, 2, 3; in 
Columbus, 109; growth in early days, 60; not so strong 
in northern half of Ohio as in southern, 67, 68, 70, 77, 
78, 79; why held in Ohio, 25, 48, 49, 65, 66; William Jay 
on, in Ohio, 44, 45 ; worse now than at end of Civil War, 
2, 140. 

Randolph, John, buys land in Ohio for freed negroes, 29. 

Read, Justice N. C, on mulattoes and feeling against negroes 
in general, 24, 58. 

Sawyer, William, bitter against negroes, 62, 69, 79, 83. 

Schools for negroes, 23, 45, 46, 48, 94. 95; separation of, 
from those of whites, upheld by Supreme court, 89, 92 ; 
abolished 1887, 93; how repeal of law for colored 
schools was received, 94-98- 

Seward, Wm. H., speech at Cleveland appealing for repeal 
of Black Laws, 37. 

Slavery, almost established in Ohio, 15-16; actually existed 
in a small way, 53, 54- 

Springfield, Mass., prejudice in, 8. 

Springfield, Ohio, general status of negroes in, 141. (See 

negroes.) 
Stone, Alfred Holt, conclusions, 1; on prejudice in the 

North, 6. 

Suffrage for negroes, denied in Northern States before the 
war,9; struggle for, in Ohio, 97-103; popular vote on, 
1867, in Ohio caricatured by Nasby, 98, 99. 

Sugar Grove, Fairfield county, resolutions of, against repeal 
of the Black Laws, 42. 

Supreme Court, decides on quantity of negro blood required 
to debar from equal rights privileges, 58; calls school 
law one of classification and not of exclusion, 89 ; gives 
several decisions in regard to equal rights acts of 1884 
and 1894, 1 18-120. 

Syracuse, a negro-hating small town, 160-165. 

The Supporter, newspaper published at Chillicothe i8i<>. 26; 
advertises an Ohio slave for sale, 54. 



i 7 8 THE COLOR LINE IN OHIO 

The Ohio Statesman, on repeal of Black Laws, 42. 

Waverly, a small town with bitter feeling against the ne- 
groes, 112. 

Washington, Booker T., on industrial education, 7. 

Western Reserve — very favorable attitude toward the ne- 
groes, 70; negro population of, 73. 

Wilberforce College, a colored institution, burnt to the 
ground by whites, 107. 

Worthington, Representative, from Chillicothe, on feeling 
toward the negroes, 31, 60, 70. 



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